Code: Lyoko Desires Revised
by Master-Aricitic
Summary: It's amazing what one dream can lead to. After some very unusual encounters with being of another dimension, the gang discovers that there really is more to everything that meets the eye.
1. Default Chapter

Since it is leagle requirement I must state that I don't own the copyright to Code: Lyoko. I may have a few good episodes recorded on my computer but that doesn't give me copyright. So I do hope that those at AnataFilms won't sue me for using their charictors. Thank you...

* * *

Hello all. Appearently there was just a little confusion and no one realised that I was replacing the original chapters with the revised ones... or at least no one commented on it. Anyway, this will be in effect as a seperate story until it reaches the original, at which time the original will be deleated and this one will be renamed... smile. I hope you approve of this one as much as you did the last.

* * *

It was shortly after the 'false start' incident; the children were still dealing with their loss. No one had wanted Aelita to have to go back to Lyoko after she was materialized, especially not Jeremie. He had worked so hard for so long on the materialization project and now he had to loose everything he had worked so hard for just because of one virus... it simply wasn't fair. The picture that he had of Aelita and him wasn't that much of a help either; he had placed it next to his computer so he could look at the picture while he worked; yet every time he looked at it he began to choke up...

Everyone was dealing with their losses in their own way, but the others were dealing with it far better than Jeremie was. Ever since the day that he had discovered the virus he had been working on an antivirus. He had been working intently on it every night, almost more than he had with the materialization project. Every night since that day he had been staying up past midnight to continue work and finish as quickly as possible. But every morning he paid for it when he woke up early for school. This night was no exception.

As Jeremie typed, completely fixed on the computer screen, Aelita appeared in a small window off to the side. She smiled when she saw him, but then saw the state that he was in. Aelita was worried for his health; she had experienced their world, and sleep, and she knew how humans needed sleep. She knew that if Jeremie didn't get the sleep he needed he would become ill...

"Hello Jeremie." Aelita said. "I see you are up late tonight as well."

Jeremie didn't respond, he hadn't noticed her at all. His focus was on the computer and his typing, and even a nuclear explosion couldn't have shifted his focus. As he continued typing, oblivious to Aelita's presence, Aelita watched him wondering why he was ignoring her. She quickly got her answer as Jeremie's head began to rock back and forth. Suddenly his eyes closed and he began to fall toward the computer. Aelita gasped and screeched, "Jeremie!"

Just before his head hit the keyboard he woke up and stopped himself. Slowly he picked himself up and looked at the screen. When he saw Aelita he jumped and blushed slightly. "Hello Aelita," he said. "How long have you been there?"

"Just a few moments before you passed out." Aelita responded concern flooding her voice. "Have you been staying up like this every night?"

"No." Jeremie lied.

"Jeremie! Don't lie to me, have you?" Aelita asked again.

"Ok, yes..." he responded looking down at his keyboard.

"How often? You can't keep doing this Jeremie, it isn't healthy." Aelita told him.

"I know, Aelita, I know. But..." Jeremie began.

"No, don't make up excuses. Nothing could be worth what you are doing." Aelita said her voice wavering.

"But..."

"No! Jeremie, you could get sick, very sick! I don't want that. I don't want to loose you."

"Aelita, I am doing this for you! I am working on an antivirus." Jeremie said.

"Oh... but... but, it won't matter if you can't finish it." Aelita told him. "Jeremie, please get some rest. You can work on the program more tomorrow. Besides, who knows... you could come up with an answer in your dreams."

There was silence for a moment while Jeremie thought about what Aelita had said. He decided that she was right, he needed sleep and he could work more on the antivirus tomorrow. "Alright, I'm going to sleep now. Good night Aelita."

"Good night Jeremie and, thank you..." her window disappeared and Jeremie prepared himself for bed.  
...

Ever since Jeremie was little he had always had strange dreams. Every night when he went to sleep he would seemingly get back out of bed and begin walking around; as he turned a corner he would suddenly find himself in a very strange space. From this space he would find himself able to see what seemed like everything at once. As he moved around in this space the things he saw would change, but every time he would always be able to see everything at once. When he was younger he couldn't control his dreams and he would suddenly find himself in a completely different place, more solid places. He would explore this new place until he woke up and 'returned' to his body. But as he began to grow up he found that he could control the dreams and he could control what he saw. He found that he was able to move through the space and see different people and places, and when he chose to do so he would go and meet those people.

This dream didn't start out any differently. He got up and walked around in his room until he suddenly found himself in the 'above' space. He chose a place to go to, a city where he had been before a few times. As he entered this world he found himself surrounded by the many different people who lived in the city. He wasn't bothered by this though, he knew that if anything happened to him he would wake up and be unharmed. He began walking to a store that he liked to visit, but as he walked he suddenly felt as though he were being watched. He tried to ignore the feeling but it was difficult, this was different than anything else that he had been through.

Suddenly his eyes locked with someone else's. The man that he was looking at was very tall, taller than six feet; he had very long very blond hair and was wearing a hooded cape over a cloak. His cloths were made up of two colors, white and black. The man smiled and moved towards Jeremie. The man walked calmly without hesitation; almost as though he knew Jeremie. As the man neared him Jeremie felt a very strong presence, it was as though this man _would_ be able to really affect him. Jeremie watched the man, unmoving, almost not breathing. He didn't know what to do, this had never happened before... When the man finally spoke to him he jumped.

"I see my thoughts were correct. I knew that all the other travelers weren't gone, and now I have found one. A young one." The man said in a calm kind voice. "But you seem familiar to me... I have seen you before somewhere... perhaps in something I watched when I was young. In any case, expect a visit from me very soon... Jeremie."

When the man said his name Jeremie felt himself fly back into his body. He landed hard on his bed with a bounce and when the shock faded from him he heard what had woken him up, his alarm was going off. He quickly glanced over to the window and realized that it was daytime. In a frenzy he got ready for another day of school, one of the only ones that he had ever slept in during.

* * *

"Jeremie's late," Yumi noticed.

"Yeah, aren't you the one who normally comes running to us?" Odd asked laughing.

I laughed a little as well. It was true, Yumi usually did show up waiving and running towards us, but it wasn't like Jeremie to be late. We all knew that he had been staying up late every night working on the antivirus, we could see the effect it was having on him every morning. He always seemed tired now and there were a number of times that he had actually fallen asleep in class. We tried to help him but nothing any of us ever did could help him. It seemed as if he was detaching himself from reality, and from us. None of us wanted to see anything bad happen to him, but it seemed that there wasn't anything that we could do.

"Hey, guys, sorry I'm late." Jeremie yelled running towards us. When he had reached the bench he stopped and panted. "I slept in..."

"It doesn't take a genius to notice that, Einstein." Odd said almost mockingly.

"Maybe that's why you did." Jeremie retorted.

Odd suddenly grew very silent but a moment later he laughed and was back to his normal self. I guessed, by his reaction, that he had realized that he had been to hard. It was in the past now but that still left the question of...

"So, have you made any progress?" I asked him.

"Yes, and I think I am almost finished... just a few more things that I need to do and I will have an antivirus." He said. "Last night..." he began but then became very quiet for a moment. When he was done he spoke again, "Last night Aelita and I talked it over and we decided that I should get more rest... though, it was more like her forcing me to." He laughed and continued. "I mean if I became ill then I wouldn't be able to work on the antivirus at all."

We all laughed and suddenly we heard a loud growling noise. Everyone stopped and looked around. The people around us were wondering what the noise was as well but the second time we all figured it out. A quick glance at Odd's guilty face and we all knew it was his stomach. He blushed and said, "What, I have normally eaten by now."

"True and I am hungry as well." Jeremie said. "Let's go get breakfast."

We headed off towards the cafeteria. When we had gotten our food and sat at our table Odd really showed how hungry he was. He quickly began shoveling the food down and I swear that I never saw him chew. I on the other hand ate calmly if at all. I wasn't that hungry. Things had been going on recently that were taking my attention away from the food in front of me. It was something that Yumi had said... or almost said to me a few days ago. It hadn't been that long after we found that Aelita would have to stay in Lyoko longer than we had thought and we were still feeling gloomy because of it. I don't really know what brought on the conversation but one day while Yumi were alone we began talking.  
...

"Ulrich, do you think about the future?" Yumi asked me.

"Not that often, why?" I responded.

"It's just... we have been through so much recently. We gained a new friend in the real world, Aelita of course, but almost instantly afterward she was taken from us."

"Yumi, she is still alive, it isn't like she is dead." I reminded her. "Nothing has really changed at all."

"I know." She said looking at me and then turning away. "But that's not how Jeremie is taking it. He is acting like she has some terrible virus that has her in a coma or something."

"Well, she is stuck in Lyoko because of the virus that X.A.N.A. put in her..." I said. "But it isn't like she can't ever come back out."

"Right, it's just... I'm worried, Ulrich. I can't imagine what I would do if I lost _you_!" she said and blushed a bright red.

I could feel myself blushing as well. This was the closest either of us had ever really gotten to saying that we loved each other. We were both almost positive that it was true but...

"Yumi, you won't loose me." I told her. "I'm not going to disappear, and I am here on earth."

"I know... but still, what if something happened in Lyoko, or worse, here on earth?"

"What, is something wrong? Do you know something that the rest of us don't?"

She didn't answer me immediately. We sat in silence for a few minuets while she thought. I didn't know what she was thinking but I had a feeling I knew what it was about, or at least what had brought it on. When she spoke again I knew that I was right.

"Lately my... abilities… have been acting up again." She said. "I have been getting bad feelings but I don't know what they are from. Something big is going to happen, something that will change everything. I feel so many things are going to happen..."

"Well, maybe this is a good thing." I said trying to cheer her up.

"No, Ulrich, I feel..." she stopped and shivered. "I feel death in the near future."

"Someone is going to die?" I asked shocked. "Do you know who?"

"You know my abilities don't work that way. I can't sense things like that." She said. "But I am worried that it will be... that it will be..."

"Me?" I said quietly.

"Ulrich I l-" but she wasn't able to finish as Odd and Jeremie walked in abruptly arguing about something.

After Jeremie and Odd had abruptly put an end to our conversation we hadn't had much time alone together. It wasn't like we didn't try to finish the conversation, but after a while we decided to simply wait. Yet that wasn't good enough for me. I was sure that I knew what Yumi had been about to say, but now that we had gotten this far... I simply wanted to hear it for myself. And it wasn't only that either, her message of impending doom was part of it as well. What had it been that had caused the feeling? She had said something about someone dying as well. Who would it be? One of us or someone else? We had found long ago that if someone died Lyoko could not bring them back... so if someone did die, like the feeling she had gotten, we would be powerless to change it...  
...

Pressure on my shoulder brought me out of my thoughts and I turned to see Yumi looking at me. I looked around the room and noticed that everyone else had left and we were the only ones left. Had I been that deep in thought? So distracted that I didn't even notice when the bell rang to tell us to get to class? Quickly I stood up and began picking up my tray, but I noticed that it was missing. I turned to Yumi and saw that hers was gone as well.

"Odd." She said and I suddenly got a vision of Odd wolfing down our food.

I laughed and Yumi relaxed a little. I realized that she had been worried and at the same time I realized that we were alone.

"Yumi," I started. "About what you were telling me about the other day..."

Yumi blushed and for a moment I believed that she was going to tell me what she had started to say but then she seemed to change her mind and said, "I don't know, Ulrich, it's just that I have this ominous feeling that something bad is going to happen within the next few weeks, something that will change our lives. The worst part is that I feel a dark cloud of death hanging along with it."

The second bell rang and I realized just how late we really were. Quickly we began running to our classes saying good bye. On the way to my class all I could think about was what Yumi had said, again...

* * *

I was sitting in my history class listening to my teacher drone on. Normally this class wasn't that interesting but in this case the teacher wasn't even making an attempt to keep our attention. Yet, for some reason everyone around me seemed to be able to pay more attention than I was. Not that they were fully awake either but at least they were able to keep their heads facing the teacher... My problem was that I was getting sleepy. My eyelids were beginning to feel like lead and I simply couldn't keep my attention on the teacher. I could literally feel myself falling asleep, slowly but surely.

Finally I gave up and my eyelids closed. At first the total darkness and silence felt like an illusion, something because I was so tired, but then my eyes began to focus and I began to realize what I was seeing. The sky was black with clouds, clouds so thick that even the lightening within them barely made any light. As I looked all around me I realized that I was standing in the city, but something had happened. All the buildings were rubble, but far more than that... Only chunks of concrete and twisted metal remained of the foundations and the piles were littered with shattered glass. It was as if a nuclear missile had hit the city, yet the damage was far more devastating.

As I looked around I began walking. The city was now a barren waist land, only a few piles of rubble reached my waist level. The damage was so complete that most of it had been powdered, as though it had been hit with a hammer... but that was impossible. Nothing could do this much devastation, nothing. The skies were black, full of darkness. The ground was nothing but crushed rubble. The air, I could now almost smell it, was thick with evil, hatred and... death.

Now I saw it! All of it. This was the vision I kept having. The vision of what was to come in the future. My emotions rushed back to me as I realized that this was my city. My home. Something devastating must have happened for it to have become like this. I could feel the evil lurking in the air, but what was it? What had caused something this terrible to happen? Suddenly, without any hint from my surroundings I knew... I knew the sad truth.

Quickly I began running. Somehow I knew where to find the factory. I ran as fast as I could, without tripping, or even breathing heavily. As I neared the place where the factory should have been, on the river, I stopped abruptly. There, where the factory should have been, on a small island in the river, laid ruins. From the looks of it something must have caused an explosion from the inside. The entire top part of the factory had been blown right off leaving only some of the walls standing. I could also see that this was the origin of what ever had caused this because there seemed to be burn marks coming away from the factory in all directions. But, again, what had caused this.

I looked and saw that most of the bridge still remained. I quickly ran to it and began to cross it. As I came to a large gap in the center I ran and leapt across. I landed on the other side and continued running to the gaping hole which had once been the door. As I slid inside I looked down to the floor and saw that the entire floor, all three levels, had been blown out. This could only have meant that the explosion had come from the supercomputer, X.A.N.A.

Now I was suddenly back in a time when the factory was still whole. As I watched I realized that I could just barely see myself disappearing down towards the elevator. I quickly jumped down to follow the others and my self but just as I reached the bottom the elevator door closed. I was running to fast and was about to slam into it when I found myself inside the elevator with the others. Patiently I waited for them to reach the control room but they simply kept going. I suddenly realized that everyone was going to go to the scanners and only then did I notice Aelita was with them.

The elevator doors opened and everyone stepped out. There appeared to be someone waiting for them but I couldn't see them very well. The others stopped and seemed to talk to the person but, naturally, I couldn't hear any of what they were saying. The person said something that the others seemed to not like and the first three stepped into the scanners, Ulrich, Odd and my other self. The scanners brought them to Lyoko and the next three stepped in... Three? I then noticed that a sixth person was with them but again I couldn't see who it was. When they had been scanned the person they had met disappeared in a flash of light.

I suddenly felt myself moving and I could not see most of the factory, including the three floors. Something was going on in both the control room on the display screen, and in the supercomputer room. I knew that this was it. A bright light began emanating around X.A.N.A. and around the scanners. Suddenly they began to light up and SLAP! I opened my eyes and found myself back in the classroom...

* * *

It was getting on lunchtime and I was getting anxious. I tapped my pencil with the tick of the clock, watching as the seconds passed. Thirty six... thirty seven... thirty eight... It was getting harder and harder for me to think of anything. I suppose that I had eaten all of Ulrich's and my food, but now I was hungry again... Speaking of Ulrich, what _had_ been wrong with him? He had been silent the entire time we had eaten and then he hadn't gotten to class until after the second bell. What was it that was bugging him so much? ... Fifty seven... fifty eight... fifty nine... RING!

I got up and began putting my stuff away. I could hear Ulrich and Jeremie doing the same behind me and when we were all packed we left the room for the cafeteria. As we walked down the hall both Jeremie and Ulrich seemed to be deep in thought and didn't talk at all. I began to get nervous; this wasn't something that usually happened. Someone was always talking to me when the others were like this, but now both were silent... I could feel myself slowly slipping into insanity... or more of insanity than I already was.

I smiled at my joke, but my smile faded as soon as we stepped out the door. There, waiting for us outside the door, was Sissi. She was standing dead center, blocking us from going any further. But there was something strange about her right now... I suddenly realized that Nicolas and Herb weren't standing with her, but that wasn't the only thing that was different. Her expression seemed different, one that I hadn't ever seen before. She was holding her arms crossed, but not in anger. Her head was tilted towards the ground and she was looking at our feet, or rather Ulrich's feet. She seemed to be uncomfortable.

"Sissi, humbled?" Jeremie whispered. "That's a new one."

"Ulrich, I... can I talk to you, please?" Sissi said. Even her voice was different. I couldn't hear any smugness in it at all.

"What about?" Ulrich said his voice just full of emotion...

"A... alone, please?"

"Oh, and what could you possibly say to me that you can't say in front of my friends?" Ulrich asked his voice full of spite and anger.

At that Sissi quickly turned around and ran off quickly. Before she left I could have sworn I saw a tear... Sissi crying? That was even newer... I turned to look at Ulrich and saw no remorse in his expression. Even though it _was_ Sissi, how could he have been so cruel and not care afterward.

Almost as if an answer to my question he blinked suddenly and shook his head. He looked around for someone or something and said, "Wasn't Sissi just here a moment ago?"

Jeremie and I stared at him in shock. It was as though the past few moments hadn't happened, but Jeremie and I knew they had. Not only was it cruel for Ulrich to act that way to Sissi but it was also cruel to act as though it hadn't happened. He began to look uncomfortable and finally said, "What?"

"You don't remember what you just said?" Jeremie asked.

"No..."

"You just made Sissi cry." I told him.

"Yeah, Sissi cry, good one Odd." Ulrich said laughing uncomfortably.

"He wasn't joking Ulrich." Jeremie said.

Now Ulrich looked confused. He really didn't remember. So, what did this mean?

"X.A.N.A.?" I asked.

"I'm going to go contact Aelita, see if she has felt any pulsations." Jeremie said.

"That's a good idea." Ulrich said. "Wouldn't want this to happen at a different time, or to other people."

Jeremie ran off towards the dorm rooms and as he left Yumi spotted us and began walking towards us. She had a funny look on her face as she walked up to us. It was a mixture of fear and discomfort. Ulrich glanced at me and I took a hint. Quickly I took off after Jeremie, leaving the two alone.

* * *

Continued... 


	2. Signs of Desire Continued Revised

Hello all, I'm gonna start off by saying, ignore the titles. They are just place holders. They have nothing to do with the actual story any more... Sorry about that, in the final verson they will reflect the actual story, or will just be CH 1, CH 2... Anywho, I hope there aren't any errors in this, there shouldn't be but it doesn't always accpet my formatting. If you notice anything stupid that I did please feel free to tell me. Thanks and enjoy.

* * *

I ran into my dorm room and quickly closed the door behind me. I turned around and began heading for my computer chair but I stopped mid stride when I noticed a small ball floating in midair a foot from my desk. The ball was both white and black at the same time, as if the two colors were pulsating together. The ball itself was just a little smaller than a foot from one side to the other and it was hovering three feet off the ground. It was one of the strangest things I had seen in the real world, and I had no idea what it was, or who it was from.

I began walking towards it to get a closer look but as I neared it I suddenly felt my body stop but _I_ kept going... I watched in astonishment as I was pulled into the 'above space' that I only saw in my dreams. I then watched in horror as I was pulled into a world without seeing what it was like first. From the glimpse it was a place that I had neither ever been to before nor had ever even seen until now, but I didn't have much time to think because I was suddenly inside it standing awkwardly, my eyes adjusting to the light.

When I could see again I looked around to see where I was. I seemed to be standing in an open field but there was something different about it. It looked somehow artificial, the way it was designed and the way that it 'flowed', the horizon appeared to be to close. I also noticed that this was not an earthlike world because the light, which had been bothering me before, was coming from four suns. There was a white sun, a yellow sun, a blue sun, and a red sun randomly scattered through the sky. The sky itself was a light blue-green and was only partly cloudy. This was defiantly not an earth-like world.

I began walking around looking for anything that might tell me where I was or why I was here, especially since I wasn't supposed to be asleep yet. As I neared what I thought was the horizon I suddenly noticed that it was in fact the edge of a cliff. I continued walking towards it and just as I got close enough to look over someone suddenly spoke to me.

"I wouldn't jump if I were you." said a kind young voice from behind me. The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. "You don't know what you might run into down there..."

I turned around to see who was talking to me and found myself looking at a young boy, just a little older than myself. He was wearing long white robes, or more specifically a white cloak over white cloths, but beneath the white was a darker color, which was probably black. His face, though it was young, had a firm look to it. There was kindness in his eyes, but there was also experience, wisdom. I was beginning to think that this person was not as old as he appeared.

"Well, are you going to speak, or does cat have you tongue?"

After he spoke I heard a horse kind of laughter coming from somewhere near buy. It sounded as though the person was eating something when they laughed, or something similar. I wasn't able to tell where it had come from, there were trees on that side behind the boy, and in any case it sounded like it had come from more than one place. The boy didn't seem to notice it at all so I decided to ignore it and simply respond.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"You are in a universe which is nearly impossible to see, and almost impossible to get to." the boy said, smiling a little.

"Ok, how did I get here then?"

"I summoned you." he replied, his smile growing.

"How did you summon me?"

"You seriously don't know? You can't even guess?"

"No... I have had dreams of going into other worlds but those..."

"Those were not simply dreams. Those were how you travel." The boy said. "You are a traveler, there is no doubt to that."

"A traveler?" I asked.

The boy smile grew broader and he turned to one side looking off in that direction. I could almost feel the giddiness coming from him. It was almost enough to replace the wisdom that I had seen earlier. The boy was so strange that I couldn't even guess what he was going to do next.

"Who are you." I asked.

"I thought I was the last." He replied. "When the war was 'over', I thought everyone else had been destroyed. I am glad that I was wrong."

"Who are you?" I repeated.

"I am _the_ traveler." He said looking at me again, his smile gone. "I am the most powerful, not by choice, not by birth, but by necessity. Within me is a power so strong that it can destroy the universes, a power that can _create_ universes. A power that can be used ultimately for good or evil, and who ever controls it can never be stopped. Well, _he_ was stopped... but that was by me."

"Who _are_ you?" I asked again raising my voice.

"I am the Aricitic traveler." He said as though it was common knowledge. "I am the man you met in your 'dream' last night."

"You are?" I asked, but then realized something. "What power do you possess?"

"Nothing, that was just me rambling, and I apologize. You came to find out what the ball was that was floating in your room." He said smiling again. "That is something that will help you with the little problem that you are struggling with. When you get back run it and you will see what I mean."

He turned to the trees and said something that I didn't understand. Something in the trees began moving but I couldn't see enough of it to know what it was. When he turned back to me he spoke again, "I will be coming to help you rid yourself of an even larger problem soon enough, but for now you will have to wait. Have a safe trip, Jeremie."

When he said my name I felt myself rush back to my body. I gasped for air, as though I had been holding my breath, but no time had even passed in this world. I was still moving towards the floating ball... and as I thought of it the ball disappeared and a disk popped into existence. The disk fell to the ground and I moved to pick it up. It wasn't damaged, or scratched when I looked at it, and it was labeled 'for Aelita'. I placed it into the CD-Rom drive and opened it. It automatically began running my antivirus program and I watched as it edited it. When it finished the program was nearly completed... so it really was helpful after all. I wonder who that boy was.

* * *

I watched the ground as Ulrich and I walked through the small forest on school grounds. I had told him about the nightmare I had just had. He had looked shocked and we had begun on our journey through the wood, in silence. He had walked in silent contemplation, thinking over what I had told him, ever since he suggested that we take a walk. I didn't know what to do, whether or not to say anything or simply continue walking in silence. It seemed that this new information was difficult to take in, but it also seemed that there was something else on his mind.

"Yumi," Ulrich said suddenly breaking the silence. "I think there is something wrong with me. I have been withdrawing and changing. It seems that something within my mind takes over and I change. This happened just a little while ago; the others say that I was cruel to Sissi."

"How were you cruel?" I asked.

"That's the thing. I don't even remember. I never remember the things that I do, it is as if they don't even happen to me." he said.

"Maybe you have some sort of, um, ability that hasn't been unlocked." I said. "Maybe this is it trying to escape. At this school I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. There are other students, other than me, that have abilities."

"Yeah, Kadic Junior High, School for the strange and gifted." Ulrich said with a bitter laugh.

"No, it's true. Odd, he has an ability... and so does Jeremie. I'm not sure what they are but I can sense them, I have been able to for a long time now."

"So then, what, are you saying that I was destined to come here? To be one of the one's who found Lyoko?" he asked.

"I don't know, maybe... I don't know most of these things, I can just sense them." I told him. "My abilities are ruled by my emotions and they grow stronger through touch. I can only just barely sense things otherwise."

A gentle breeze blew around us. It was getting colder and I could see the light beginning to fade beyond the leaves of the trees. I knew that it must be a cloud coming over us, which meant that there was a storm about to hit us. I knew that we should start heading back to the school and I could tell that Ulrich believed so as well. We reversed our steps and began walking the way we had come. The woods weren't that big so it wouldn't take us very long to get back to the school so we didn't hurry.

As we walked the wind continued to blow and grew harder. The air around us was getting colder almost by the second. I was beginning to shiver and when Ulrich noticed he moved closer to me. When we touched I saw a sudden flash but it went away as quickly as it had come. I didn't think much of it since I didn't get any kind of telepathic vision. We continued walking in silence towards the school.

After a while I began to realize that we should have reached the school by now. It was very dark around us, but still light enough to see by but barely. The trees around us were towering black figures in the dim light and the underbrush made the ground move as though it were alive. Every so often I thought I saw or heard something moving but I ignored it since there were no large animals in the woods near the school. The woods weren't big enough, but on the other hand they weren't this big either...

"Um, Ulrich..." I began.

"I know, we're lost."

"But the woods aren't this big. We should have made it out by now, it's not like people can really get lost in them."

"But we are."

And then it began to rain. The rain fell all around us, regardless of the trees. Within only a few seconds we were drenched. Now it was cold, dark, and raining, not to mention that we were impossibly lost. I couldn't think of how it could get worse. But that was never a good thing to do, because that always made it worse. As soon as the thought passed though my mind a large animal dashed out of the underbrush on one side of the path to the other. It had been the size of a large dog and had moved very quickly. I hadn't had enough time or light to see what it was, but I knew that it was big and dangerous...

"Where are we?" I asked.

"I don't know but it doesn't seem friendly..." Ulrich said.

* * *

Jeremie was already on his computer and trying to communicate with Aelita. It took only a few moments and her face popped up in a small window on his desktop. She smiled and said, "Good morning Jeremie, did you sleep well?"

"Yes, but I over slept." Jeremie replied 'forgetting' to mention his strange dream and his vision. "I don't mean to be rude but I am going to cut this short, do you sense any pulsations?"

"No, why?" Aelita asked.

"Well, Ulrich has started acting funny. He has done it before, but not like this. He has never been cruel before." He told her. "I thought X.A.N.A. might have something to do with it."

"No, I haven't sensed any pulsations but I will watch for any that may come."

Jeremie would have said 'thank you' but at that moment he saw the dark cloud that was beginning to envelope the sky. Then the wind hit his window nearly breaking the glass. He could tell, just as everyone else, that this was not a natural storm. He quickly looked back at the screen and was shocked to see the look on Aelita's face. She had a look of pure horror, as though she was looking death in the eyes...

"Aelita, what's the matter?" Jeremie nearly yelled.

"Pulsations..." Aelita panted. "Thousands of them, millions, more than I can count, more than there are towers... and, I think someone is trying to hack into Lyoko. I can feel their cold grip clasping-" but here she was cut off into static and the link closed.

"Aelita? Aelita!" Jeremie yelled but it was no use the link was already lost. "Damn, what is happening in there?"

* * *

In town Odd was facing mass panic by all the people around him. He knew, by now, that he had to get to the factory. The others would probably be waiting for him, and there was no time to waist. If X.A.N.A. could control the weather there was no telling what could happen, and if X.A.N.A. got hold of godlike powers they would be dead before they knew what hit them... So it was with this in mind that Odd rushed against the mass panic towards the factory, which was still currently abandoned.

As he ran dodging people on every side he looked up at the sky. Lightening was dodging and darting across the black clouds and the wind was growing faster and faster at every moment. Parts of buildings were beginning to break and fly around or fall directly to the ground. He could hear screams near where the rubble landed and he prayed that no one had gotten hit. He ran even faster knowing that at any moment he himself could get crushed under some part of a building, and he knew that if he or anyone else died they would not be able to bring them back by going back in time...

Once, when they were still learning everything about Lyoko, there had been a X.A.N.A. attack. It had started out as usual, but this was when they were still new to it and they were cocky because of the ability to go back in time. They had not yet learned the horrible truth about what really happens to someone if they die... and the worse of it was to come during this X.A.N.A. attack.

X.A.N.A. was using electrical currents to create faux lightening throughout the city. The machine could control the lightening to an effect, but not fully. It was careful not to do anything to endanger itself, even though the factory did have a backup electrical generator within it... The faux precision strikes were aimed at the five members of the Lyoko gang, five because they originally were five. A fifth friend, a fifth person to fight against X.A.N.A. But there was an accident. During the lightening strikes it had been Yumi and her younger brother running through a field and her brother sacrificed himself to save Yumi.

They had thought that when they went back into the past that he would be alive again, and sure enough there he was, sitting in his class... but he was not alive. His body was there, but his soul, his being had left. They had buried him, all grieving for the loss. The doctors had not been able to determine what had killed him... his body should have worked fine, but there was no brain functions. His will was not there...

Odd shuddered as he passed under an arch. It had been the worst moment of this entire adventure. To loose a friend, or, for Yumi, a brother... it had nearly torn the group apart. That was why they tried to make sure that no one was ever put in real danger. They had to keep everyone alive; never again would someone have to grieve because of their mistakes... But today they wouldn't have to worry about anyone, he would make sure of that. Quickly he found a way to get into the underground passages, just above the sewer. This way he would not be in any danger...

* * *

The creatures continued moving around us, usually in darkness, but every now and then one or two would jump out on the path in front of us. Both Ulrich and I would jump when they did this. It was just as bad as the storm, which was still raging over us, and we were still getting pounded with rain. So it was with both fear and cold that we shivered as we walked. Neither of us could know if we would be attacked, or if we would survive the storm itself... but the worse part about it for me was the voices. I could hear faint voices in my head calling back and fourth. They were faint enough that I could not understand what they were saying, but they were also strong enough that I knew that I was hearing them. I looked over to Ulrich every now and then to see if he heard them as well, and he appeared to not take any notice...

Suddenly, to make things worse, a lightening bolt flew from the sky and hit the tree directly next to us. Three of the creatures suddenly rushed from that spot and I got a glimpse of one of them. It appeared to be a large dog, but some of its features were twisted. Its ears, the most noticeable, were bent up and back, in a way that reminded me of an elf. Its body was long and thin but full of muscle. But the most noticeable thing was its color; its fur was green. It was something that I had never heard of, and would have thought impossible...

"Ulrich-" I started but he was walking over to the burning tree. At first I was horrified but then I realized that he was grabbing a branch. It would mean we would have a torch to walk with.

"Come on, I see a clearing up ahead." He said pointing at a gap in the trees where there was a white light coming in.

"Civilization. Good, maybe they can tell us where we are." I replied.

We continued walking, but now the animals kept their distance...

* * *

Jeremie had been running to the factory as fast as he could, and, he didn't know why, but he had brought the disk with him. He was currently running through the sewer that led from the school to the factory. He was running because all of their stuff was missing and he was in too much of a hurry to look for them. So far he had made it half way there and was passing by a corner when Odd jumped out and ran into him.

"Hey, watch where you're... Oh, Jeremie, you aren't at the factory yet?"

"No, I just lost contact with Aelita a few minutes ago and then noticed the storm."

"Yeah, I think X.A.N.A. is trying to play god again..."

"Well, we mortals will stop him, again."

Odd and Jeremie laughed at Jeremie's joke. Then Odd looked around and asked, "Where are the others?"

"I don't know, I couldn't reach them on their cell-phones."

"You don't think..."

"No. They are safe, I have a feeling that they are in a place where X.A.N.A. can't get them..."

* * *

We had reached the clearing, but as soon as we stepped into it I wished we hadn't. The creatures that Yumi and I had seen before were standing all around us, and there was one really large one in the center. In the light I saw that they were all various shades of green, from very light to dark, but the one in the center was a healthy kind of dark green, if I had to compare it, he looked like a vegetable... but this was no time to be impressed, we were in danger around these creatures.

"Ulrich, put down that branch." Yumi said, her voice firm.

"What? Are you insane?" I asked and looked at her. She had a solemn look on her face, little fear had remained but what was left I knew was because of my holding the stick. When I dropped it she seemed to relax.

"There, is that better?" I asked.

"Don't ask me, ask him." She said pointing at the dog, or rather wolf-they were far more like wolfs than dogs, in the center.

"You want me to ask an animal what it thinks." I said mockingly.

As I spoke she flinched and I realized that she was being serious. There was something that she knew that I didn't... and if that were so it must be because of her telepathy.

"Yumi, what's going on?"

_That is the question you should have asked._ Said a voice in my head, though voice isn't the right term. It was like I was hearing it but it was more like I was feeling it, or perhaps thinking it myself.

"We shouldn't be here..." Yumi said quietly, almost apologetically.

"Who said that?" I asked reacting to the voice.

_I did._ Said the voice. _Look directly in front of you, child._

As I did so I looked directly into the center of the group of animals. The largest one, obviously the leader, was staring grimly at me.

_You are trespassing on Aricitic territory. No humans are welcome here, but since we recently agreed with the traveler that we would leave the next two human children alone, one European male and one Asian female. We are bound to not attack you._

"Who are you?" I asked, my voiced changed to become more respectful.

_I am the leader of the Aricitics. We live on the opposite side of Aricitopia from the traveler and his Aricitics._

"Ulrich we should leave." Yumi said.

"I think you are right Yumi. Lets go." I said.

"Uh," she stalled and turned to the creatures, Aricitics. "May we go?"

_Leave, and never return to this part of Aricitopia. Humans are not welcome here, especially humans with special abilities. If it were up to me you would have already been bitten, but we must respect the traveler's word. Now go, leave us and return to your own world._

We walked back out of the clearing and back into the rain...

* * *

Odd and Jeremie had reached the factory. Odd was going down to the scanner room and Jeremie was trying to contact Aelita. Jeremie was desperately trying to get a link with Lyoko again but it simply wouldn't work. Nothing he did would allow him to get into Lyoko. He leaned back in his chair and nearly began to cry but then he remembered the CD that he had brought with him. Quickly he got it out and placed it in the drive. It automatically appeared on the screen.

'Running anti-viral spyware.' was displayed on the screen. The window began to change as multiple different characters appeared. He recognized a few of them in their various languages, but some of them were utterly foreign to him. As he watched a package was opened and something called the 'Aricitic Virus' was released into the computer. What happened next took only a few seconds, the entire room suddenly went pitch black as the screen shut off, then everything turned back on and the computer booted up. When everything was on again the computer displayed, 'Viral infections weakened and dormant. Press any key to...'

Quickly Jeremie pressed enter and said his famous catch phrase, "Return to the past now."


	3. Signs of Desire Continued Revised2

Hello all, in case you haven't been able to tell yet I have been adding a little bit of a beginning with more of an intro to the traveler. I do hope you all don't mind, but from the reviews that I have gotten so far, you don't. I intend to eventually release the actual stories that I have _started_ about him... but they aren't anywhere near finished. In any case I intend to bring it back to Lyoko in the next chapter. Thank you all, and enjoy.

* * *

The changes began immediately, but if any of the Lyoko gang had been watching it, they would not have known what was going on. The beginning was similar to what usually happened but after that it changed. A white light began emanating from around the factory but as it spread out it began forming a symbol. Suddenly it began moving creating a circle within a circle. An 'S' was formed in the center then an 'A' on the center line of the 'S' and an upside down 'A' completed an 'N', finally a small 'T' like shape formed a 'G' on the top part of the 'S'. Around this symbol hundreds of other smaller symbols were formed, many of them were in various human religions or philosophies, but many of them were not. In the outer circle eight smaller circles were formed and a vivid image that made one think of the elements: fire, water, earth and air appeared in four. In the other four images of electricity, ice, metal, and a tree formed. Once all of the symbols were formed the entire sigil was lifted into the air around the illuminated factory...

Of course, during all of this time was not paused, and, even though a storm was raging on around them, people couldn't help but watch the sigil being formed. The strange thing was that the lightening would not pass beneath the sigil and the wind had seemingly stopped. The people who noticed this began to feel safe again, and the people who were watching called everyone else to watch.

The sense of security ended as the next series of events took place, though. The sigil began to grow brighter as lights from all the other symbols were drawn into the center. The new light began forming a spinning ball, and the ball began to grow larger and brighter. This continued for a few seconds until the ball was large enough to consume a European double-decker buss. Then came the part which terrified all the people who could see it. The humongous ball began to slowly lift into the air and a small breeze began to blow. On the breeze was one word, "Absolution." The ball fell and hit the light emanating from the factory the two merged, the ball appearing to consume the factory, and the ball exploded outward in what must have looked like a nuclear explosion...

The light spread throughout the city consuming everything, and as it passed by Kadic Junior High it spread to the two humans in the Aricitopian universe. They were 'whisked' away and appeared in their own universe. The light continued until it reached the edge of the city, there it seemed to fade, but that was only what it would have looked like. As it faded it came back upon itself and time slowly reversed...

* * *

I watched the ground as Ulrich and I walked through the small forest on school grounds. I had told him about the nightmare I had just had. He had looked shocked and we had begun on our journey through the wood, in silence. He had walked in silent contemplation, thinking over what I had told him, ever since he suggested that we take a walk. I didn't know what to do, whether or not to say anything or simply continue walking in silence. It seemed that this new information was difficult to take in, but it also seemed that there was something else on his mind.

"Yumi," Ulrich said suddenly breaking the silence. "Do you get the feeling that this has happened before?"

"Yes, it's like déjà vu." I replied. "You were just about to say, 'Yumi, I think there is something wrong with me...'."

"Yeah, strange." Ulrich said mystified. "Do you think there was a tower activated and Odd and Jeremie deactivated it with out us?"

"No, we have always remembered things that happen before."

"Perhaps we should find the others." Ulrich said.

"I agree, but maybe we should check the factory. I don't know what it is but I get a strange feeling that something is wrong..." I said and then added. "We should hurry."

Unfortunately we weren't near the entrance to the sewer and it took us a while to find it. We jumped down and noticed that our skateboards were gone. Sighing in exasperation we began running, but I felt something else with us. For some reason it was like there was a third person here and they seemed really worried about something. As we neared a corner I suddenly began to brace myself for impact and felt myself hit something. I fell back and landed hard on the ground. When I looked to see what I had hit there was nothing there, but Ulrich seemed very startled.

"I felt as though I ran into something, and... it feels as though there are two other people here with us." I said.

"Ghosts?" he asked.

"No, more like déjà vu. Like this place is remembering an event that should be happening right now." I told him. "Oh! Let's hurry. Come on." I yelled jumping up and running again.

We continued on and I could feel Ulrich's gaze on my back. I knew he was watching me, worried, but I could also feel the other two, who ever they were. When we got to the ladder up I climbed as quickly as I could and literally burst out onto the bridge. When I looked at the factory I saw just a hint of a creepy pure white light emanating from around it. I turned around and helped Ulrich up, and when he saw the factory he said, "Whoa, what is that? Yumi, do you see that light?"

"See," I said, "You do have special abilities, like me."

"Yumi, you haven't said that, not recently at least... and yet, I feel as though... Oh, this is getting annoying, come on." He ran to the factory and I followed him.

"Come on, Ulrich, I think its fun. Besides, you get to see some of the stuff that I have to go through daily."

"Really? How can you stand it?"

"I can't. But I want to continue living... so I deal with it."

We jumped off the ledge and grabbed at the wires hanging from the roof. I watched Ulrich grab one, but I missed mine. Suddenly I was falling two storied to the hard cement ground, but just before I landed I adjusted my body and caught myself, almost like a cat... I looked up at Ulrich's horrified face, and showed him that I was ok. He nodded and swung down.

"I can sense it, there is strong magic at work here." I said.

"Really, or have you always been such a gymnast?"

"Well that too."

We rushed into the elevator door, which was waiting open for us. It closed when Ulrich pushed the button and we began moving down. Almost as soon as we were moving though Ulrich said, "Shoot, I don't know the combination to get in."

"That's not good, how will we get out of the elevator?" I asked, but as if in response to my question the elevator stopped and the door opened.

"I just had a horrifying thought," Ulrich said as the door opened. "What if this is a trap?"

I was about to answer but the door opened wide enough for us to see through. At first I didn't know what I was looking at, nor could I see very well. The entire room was illuminated with the nauseating brilliant pure white light. It seemed to be coming from the computer terminal, but there was something off about the chair... Suddenly it hit me.

"Jeremie!" I nearly screamed as I ran over to his limp body.

He was lying against the chair completely limp. All the color, what color there usually was, was completely drained from his body. He looked dead and I could tell that he wasn't breathing. I quickly checked for a pulse and felt none...

Tears came to my eyes and I embraced him in a hug. Jeremie was dead, dead, and there was nothing we could do about it. We all knew that no one could be brought back by returning to the past. Now there was nothing we could do for one of our most dear friends. He was... Jeremie was dead...

"'Past restoration complete.'?" Ulrich asked.

I looked up at him confused. He was looking at the computer terminal. I looked at it and saw on it the words he had just spoken, there was some symbol rotating beneath it, but I didn't know what it was.

"Is he alright?" Ulrich asked looking down at me.

"What do you think?" I asked bitterly.

"You're crying? Oh, god. Is he... dead?" Ulrich asked in shock.

I nodded and he broke down crying. It was one of the first times I had seen him cry. I gently placed Jeremie's body back against the chair and moved over to comfort Ulrich. I placed my arm around him but the emotions were too overwhelming, especially since I was feeling his as well as mine. We both cried together, holding each other. Jeremie was lost, and...

"Oh, god, Odd." I got up and looked around, but we were alone... or, well, alone.

"He must be down in the scanner room." Ulrich said.

Ulrich began running to the elevator, but then he remembered that there was a pole that lead directly down one level. He ran to that and jumped down it. I heard his movements in the scanner room and suddenly realized that he had left me alone with Jeremie's dead body... I shuddered and moved away slightly. No matter how much I loved him as a friend, being near a lifeless body was not something that I wanted to do.

I heard I cry of agony come from the scanner room and I knew that Ulrich had found Odd. Two of our best friends had been lost today, three in all. How could we go on? How could we continue living knowing that they were dead, and even so, how could we continue to fight against X.A.N.A.?

* * *

I opened my eyes and saw a blue-green sky. I felt somewhat soft ground beneath me, and realized that I was lying on my back. I began standing up but suddenly a face appeared above me. The face was kind looking, and also wild looking. I could see that it was a girl, but her features were slightly strange. Her hair appeared to be willow leaves, and her skin looked wood-like. Other than the treeness of her features she looked normal.

"Hello." I said.

When I spoke she seemed to jump slightly. She looked over at someone and then back at me. "Hello," she said, her voice sounded normal but with a bit more hollow woodyness to it.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"You have appeared on Aricitopia." She told me. "You must be a powerful magician to be able to come here. What is your name?"

"Jeremie." I replied and began getting up again.

When I was in a sitting position I looked over at her and got a shock. She was completely naked. Having lived in France for all of my life it wasn't that much of a shock to see a naked body, but I was still shy around nudists-having never gone to a nude beach myself.

She noticed my shock and how I became uncomfortable and at first she didn't seem to understand, but then she realized what I was uncomfortable about and giggled. "Alright then." She said and what appeared to be leaves appeared in a close like fashion around her body. When they had finished 'growing' she looked like a girl wearing a green dress.

"I don't mean to be rude, but what are you?" I asked.

"I am a wood elemental. But you may know me better as a dryad." She said.

"What?" I said surprised. "But I thought they were just a myth."

"Where you come from we may be but in many universes variations of my people do exist." She told me. "Where do you come from? And why are you here?"

"Um, I thought I came from earth, but if there are different universes I guess that wouldn't help much." I told her. "As for why I am here, I don't know."

"Well then, you will just have to see the traveler." She said matter-of-factly. "If you don't know where you came from you won't know how to get back. You must not be a very good traveler, unlike my mother, Shyoishofu. She was the traveler of my race, you know?"

"No, I didn't know. Like I said I have only just found that your species exists. Sorry." I said.

"You really are new to traveling then..." she said. "Well, the travelers were eradicated recently, so you would have to be. How old are you?"

"Me? I'm thirteen. Why?" I asked.

"Oh, I am three hundred seventy-six, earth years." She said. "You are just a baby aren't you?"

She was walking and up until now I had been following her, but at this comment I stopped. Not only was I shocked that she was hundreds of years old but I was also insulted that she thought of me as a baby. I was not a baby in any sense, and that was an unfair statement.

"What?" she asked, having stopped herself.

"I'm not a baby." I said, a hint of a whine in my voice.

"But you are only thirteen, that's so young." She said. "Maybe I misunderstand something, but the traveler himself is many millions of years old, maybe more."

"No way." I said now shocked. "That young boy is so old?"

"You didn't know? Well I suppose you are finding out a lot today."

"Well, truth be told I have only recently met the traveler."

We began walking again, this time in silence. As we walked I began seeing more dryads, they all seemed to be clothed now. I guess news of my arrival had traveled somehow. As we passed through the forest we neared a stream and I saw another people. These were water people, naiads, except not. Naiads and dryads were nymphs and these were both male and female. They must have been truly elementals, spirits of the elements themselves. With this new knowledge I began to wonder how lucky I was to see these people, not many people from my universe would have...

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To the air elementals." She replied. "We need to get somewhere fast and they are the people to see."

* * *

I looked around me; I was floating in a vast open space. It was mostly dark around me, but there were small lights every here and there. Suddenly I realized that I was floating in space and I became disorientated. My body began thrashing about wildly trying to grasp top from bottom, but there was nothing that would allow me to do so. Then, in my panic about floating, I suddenly realized that I shouldn't be able to breathe. I gasped for air and found that I could get air into my lungs. This allowed me to relax slightly. It might just be a premonition.

I looked, uh, down, I think it was... though by now I had moved so much that I couldn't have ever figured out where I had started. Beneath me was a very large planet, and oddly enough, there were four large glowing things floating around it. One of them was yellow, one was white, one was red, and one was blue. I had no idea what they could have been, but now I had something to orientate myself to. I positioned my body so that I was standing facing the planet and placed myself in a sitting position.

'Well, Odd,' I thought to myself. 'Lets just see where this takes you.'

* * *

We had reached an open grassy plane. Around me I could feel a genital breeze flowing in one direction. The wood elemental's hair was flowing in the breeze and she seemed happy, calm. I had already seen many different elementals, and a few that I hadn't thought were elements. But that was not what was on my mind now because in front of me I saw a very large building looming into the sky. It was mostly a clean white color, void of most other colors at all. As I looked at it I realized that the air was flowing to it, and not in its general direction. I also realized that this tower was similar to the towers in Lyoko. Then suddenly it hit me, I knew exactly what we were doing. We were going to use this tower to move from one part of this world to another.

When we entered it I knew that I was right. The tower was built differently than a Lyoko tower but that was natural, no solid material would allow other solid material to simply move through it. On the inside there were two sets of stairs, one leading up around the outer wall of the tower and another leading downward directly beneath the second set of stairs. The two stairs spiraled around the tower and were really more like one set than two.

At first I thought we were going to take the stairs, either up or down, but I suddenly realized that we were now. The wood elemental brought me to the center of the room over an insignia that I knew that I had seen before. It was some kind of twisted S and N. I didn't have long enough to look at it before a light began to illuminate the insignia and then the air around us. Suddenly I felt myself moving very fast, but it didn't look like I was. I could see that I was in some kind of tube or something and I could see out of it. There were hundreds of other tubes around us and there were things moving within them. Around the tubes though was white space, which looked like normal space but was white instead of black.

I didn't get to see much of that space before I suddenly appeared on the same insignia in a different place. There standing and _waiting_ for us was a tall man with long golden blond hair. He was wearing the same things that I had seen before, his four wings relaxed behind him. He had been waiting for us, so he knew that I was here. Well, I would just have to see where this would lead.

"Welcome back, Jeremie." The traveler said. "Did you enjoy your trip?"

"What the hell did you do?" I demanded, loosing my cool for some reason.

"Did you think that magic wouldn't have a price? Did you think that I would do you a favor for _free_? Did you think that I _could_ do you a favor for free?" he asked. "No, Jeremie, there is always a price, but I am usually the one who pays it, as I am now."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, you are here, fully, physically, as is Odd..." he said. "But you are not a skilled traveler, you can only travel through dreams."

The wood elemental next to me, I still hadn't learned her name, gasped. She looked at me shocked, and then relaxed and began to look almost angry. Had I somehow offended her, or, no there was some fear there, was something going on that I didn't understand. That must be it, and I was sure that I would find out soon enough.

"Let me tell you something," began the traveler. "I have been to your universe, or one similar to it, before. I know what Lyoko is like, and how it works. For me it can be dangerous, it allows things to move between universes, and in doing so change. But long ago I made a law that stated that no one could possess that technology. I did this manly because the one universe that I _gave_ the technology to used it to enslave many others... but that is another story.

"You see the problem that I have with it now, other that what it _can_ be used for, is that it interferes with my abilities. But that isn't the only thing it does, there is a price for using the technology that allows you to communicate; to go to Lyoko. But because it is a mechanical device this price is different. It tears up your body and reassembles it in Lyoko, you change, become someone, something different. But, in the sense that it does it you and your friends are, relatively speaking, safe. There will be no real effect on the five of you, but it still drains you of everything you have, just to use it. And X.A.N.A. is a byproduct of what you are using..."

"But X.A.N.A. was created even before _we_ ever came to Lyoko. He was made from a virus!" I objected.

"True, I didn't say that you had created him, just the technology, the machine, that you use to see Aelita; to go to Lyoko." He replied calmly. "For all good there is evil, for your machine there is X.A.N.A., for Aelita there is X.A.N.A. as well. Because of both of them he was created... But the scanners themselves, they are the most dangerous. They can take life or give life. But the cost... never mind. It is simply a machine; the cost is dealt with through mechanics..." he paused and looked off into the distance. "But that isn't why you are here. You are here because a different evil has entered your universe, one that _I_ created." He sighed. "This always happens. Well, do you know how you got here?"

It seemed to me to be a stupid question, but I decided to answer anyway. "No,"

"Did you know that every time you had traveled into another universe you were only partly there?" he asked. "You were never truly physically manifested there, but now... now you are here in a completely physical body. Why is that, do you think?"

"Because you summoned me here?" I guessed, but that seemed wrong to me somehow. No the look he had on his face, it must have been some reason that had something bad attached to it. Like he said, all magic had some sort of price, what was mine? Then it hit me, I was here physically because I was not physical elsewhere. "Because I died."

"You and Odd both." He told me. "The price to rid your world of my evil, or at least make it dormant until I can, was death. But I never allow this to happen. No one will die when I can save them." He placed out a hand and a dark plane appeared. It looked almost like a keyboard, but it was completely flat, semitransparent and wasn't connected to anything. He appeared to type something and a couple of screens of the same kind appeared around him. "I will bring you back from the dead, but I can't do it alone, not while I am here at least. Let's just hope that your friends have found you already..."

* * *

I had brought Odd's body up to the computer room. We had laid them on their backs in an open space and were trying to decide what to do with them. We would have to tell someone that they had died eventually, but how? There was no evidence of injury. As far as we knew they hadn't been poisoned, and someone would check. They hadn't been drowned, that was obvious. How could we explain their deaths?

"What are we going to do?" Yumi asked. "This has gotten out of hand..."

"I know-" I started but I was interrupted by a loud beeping sound.

Yumi and I looked around for the source of the sound and realized that it had come from the computer. On the terminal was a display with the words, 'Restore Life Losses?' Yumi and I looked at one another stunned. What did this mean? We both knew that once people died they could not be brought back by Lyoko, so what did this mean? But on the other hand this screen didn't have the Lyoko symbol on it, instead there was the one that had been on it before.

"What do we do?" I asked.

Yumi answered by walking up to the computer and pressing the 'Y' button... nothing happened.

"Perhaps it is voice activated?" I suggested.

Quickly Yumi placed the headset on and said, "Yes."

Then the computer monitor came alive. Thousands of things were popping onto and off of the screen at once. But that wasn't all that was happening. The room around us, and the pure white glow, was changing. The glow was moving from the walls to the place where we had put Odd and Jeremie's bodies. Suddenly I saw their bodies beginning to float in the air, their chests apparently being held up by something. As we watched they began to change, Odd's cloths stretched over him and became large cat-paw gloves, and a tail grew... but what was more impressive was what was happening to Jeremie. His entire body was changing. He seemed to be aging to somewhere around seventeen and his cloths were becoming more... mystic. I suddenly realized that these must be their Lyoko characters, Odd's was certainly what he had become, but I had never seen Jeremie's before. I was just beginning to wonder why this was happening when suddenly both of them disappeared in a flash of light.

"Oh, sh-" I began but Yumi seemed to have an idea. She had begun typing franticly on the keyboard and apparently was trying to connect to Lyoko. Suddenly Aelita's face appeared in a window.

"Hello Yumi, where is Jeremie?" she asked.

"I was hoping that you could tell _us_. He just disappeared in front of us and I believe he has somehow gone to Lyoko." Yumi told her. "Can you check? I mean, is there a way to?"

"I am already doing so. I should find them in a matter of seconds, but if you could help I would appreciate it."

"How can I help?" Yumi asked.

"If they have been somehow transported to Lyoko, without using the scanners, then we will probably have to use Jeremie's Materialization program. If that's the case someone is going to have to get it..."

"No problem," I said. "He keeps a copy here at all times."

"Oh, well that made it simple... the other thing is I need you to run a search for an activated tower. If this is a X.A.N.A. attack we need to know what tower is active."

"But wouldn't you feel pulsations?" Yumi asked.

"It is possible that X.A.N.A. has found a way to mask the pulsations..." she paused for a second and then appeared to hold her head. "Or not... Yes I feel pulsations. Run the scan, we will need to know where to go."

"Ok, but how are we going to get there?" I asked.

"I can virtualized you." Aelita said. "Just run those scans. And if I need you to do anything else I will let you know." The window disappeared.

"Is it just me or does she seem changed somehow?" I asked.

"Yes, she does. What do you think it is?"

"I don't know, but I am sure we will find out soon enough.


	4. Signs of Desires Continued Reviesd3

Hello all, sorry it took me so long... I have been reading books, speciffically the books from the Ender saga and the Bean saga, both written by Orson Scott Card who has a writing stile very similar to mine. I have almost finished the last one that I have so I will be freed up soon. Again, sorry that I haven't been writing more often.  
Also, I would like to state that I checked online and appearently someone had decided to advritize me at TVTome, I think that's spelledright... In any case, that part of the websight was shut down before I was able to look at it. Well, if anyone knows what it said I would like to know. I was just shocked and happy to see that someone did that.  
Another also, between a few and many years ago I had been writing stories of my own, up until just before first grade. Most of the stories were never finished... Um... Don't worry this one will be... and most of the stories are not my best quality, but I was thinking of placing them on fictionweb, or whatever it's called, so that people can read and compare them when I finally do finish a GOOD one.  
Tell me what you think. Thanks.

* * *

"Ah, delightful." the traveler said. "They have not only found your bodies, but they also knew what to do when I sent them the message. It seems that your X.A.N.A. is being compliant as well, he has activated a tower where your bodies are. Now all we have to do is _get_ you there. That will be the trick, since I cannot leave Aricitopia yet."

"He is not _our_ X.A.N.A." was my immediate reply.

"You misunderstand me. As I have said I have been in other Lyokian universes. I have met other X.A.N.A.s." he replied. "But there is still an immediate threat. We must get Odd."

"Odd? Where is he?" I asked.

The traveler pointed up. I looked but all I saw was the white sun. Then I realized what he meant. Odd was somehow in space! "But won't he die?" I asked and realized my own stupidity.

"Dear boy, you and he are already dead. Even though your bodies can be lost, and your very selves can be changed, you cannot die again. At least not in the way you mean." The traveler said with a laugh. "Now, shall we go and fetch him?"

I was still falling gently towards the planet but I was beginning to get the feeling of how big it really was. By now I was floating next to the white glowing thing that was in orbit around the planet and I was shocked to see how big it really was, and how fast I really was moving. Honestly, I had no idea the size of our sun, but this thing seemed to be a similar size. But it couldn't be a sun... no, it was white and not nearly as bright, I could look directly at it. On the other hand this was a vision, and there was no telling what I could and could not do in a vision.

As I stared at the sun I realized that there were millions of different sized balls of light floating around within it. So it wasn't a sun, at least not in the sense that ours was, but instead it must be some thing made up of the balls of light. I was passing close enough that a few of them jumped out close enough for me to reach. I grabbed one and held it in my hands. It was a small white ball that seemed to pulsate with light, and something else, though it what ever it was it wasn't visible. It felt invigorating to hold the ball, but also peaceful and calming. I didn't know what it was, and I may never know, but for now I was glad to have found it, and would keep it for as long as I could.

I was beginning to move faster now, or at least that was what it appeared. The 'sun' was far behind me, and the planet was looming bigger and bigger. Soon enough I would reach the atmosphere and, if I were real, burn up... but as I drew ever nearer something came closer to me. I could see a small speck coming up from the ground directly at me, not that I knew what it was, but I could tell that it was moving towards me.

We were moving at an incredible speed, the traveler just barely using his wings, and myself floating next to him. I could see what we were heading for. A small speck coming from the white sun was falling rapidly towards us. Or we were rapidly moving towards it, or both. I wasn't very sure, but in either case the speck was getting closer to us and soon we were able to see what it was. Honestly I already knew what it was, and I knew that the traveler did as well, but I simply couldn't believe it. Nothing could survive in space, and even though we were already 'dead', as the traveler had told me, the lack of oxygen and the zero degrease Kelvin temperature would make his body useless... so it really was a surprise to see him alert, moving, and looking quite comfortable. He was holding something white and glowing in his hands, but I couldn't tell what it was.

"About time you found me, I was getting board." Odd said in his usual carefree manor.

"Yeah, well..." I started.

"We were busy." The traveler said calmly.

"So Jeremie, who is this?" Odd asked me pointing at the traveler.

I began explaining who he was and how I had met him before, and what the situation was. He seemed amused while I told him and when I finished he said, "I knew that someday my humor would be the death of me..."

"What?" I asked.

"Just before we, uh, died, I was saying to myself, 'If I go into the scanner when there is an electrical storm around us then I bet my atoms will be placed in a universe other than Lyoko, wouldn't that be something to laugh at...'" he laughed but I failed to see how it was funny.

"It seems that you were partly right." The traveler replied. "But it wasn't the scanner that killed you, you weren't even near it."

"Yeah, but it was during an electrical storm, and I always said..." but the traveler cut him off.

"I am sure that it is very interesting, but your friends are looking for you in Lyoko now and it would be rude to keep them waiting. I'll see you off but I can't come with you." he said. "Oh, and I doubt that either of you will remember anything, but if you do, don't tell anyone else. I will be coming to meet you all, and fully undo the damage caused by... well, in effect, me. But that day has not come. Bye for now."

At that he raised both hands and pointed two fingers at us. A small light briefly appeared but I wasn't able to see any more before I suddenly felt a yanking pull on the center of my chest and I felt myself falling backwards. I suddenly stopped as though I had hit concrete from forty stories in the air and gasped for breath... then I opened my eyes.

Suddenly the scan found the activated tower and, at the same time, Aelita's face appeared on the monitor. "Found them." She said. "Now, lets get you two in here to get them."

Yumi and I made our way to the scanner room. As I passed by where I had found Odd lying on the ground I shuddered, but that had been before, now we were going to bring him and Jeremie back. All we had to do was get into Lyoko, and get them out. Simple, right? Well, I hoped so, or we would be in some trouble. We had already missed all of our classes after lunch, if we didn't show up that night people would begin to wonder...

I stepped into my scanner and Yumi into hers. Aelita started the virtualization sequence and within a few seconds I saw the ring of light move up around my body and then back down. Then, in one jumping moment, I felt myself floating lightly as though wind were blowing me up. Suddenly my vision changed and I felt myself dropping. I quickly caught myself as I always did just as I hit the ground of the Lyoko mountain region. I looked around me and saw that we were near a few towers that we had already deactivated, I also saw Aelita running towards us waving. Glancing over at Yumi I saw her in her virtual form of a geisha girl. I always found the character ironic, but at the same time she was incredibly beautiful, though I wasn't sure if it was her making the character look that way or the other way around...

"The tower is over there." Aelita said when she had reached us and pointed to a thing in the distance.

The tower was different from the others. It was larger, taller and wider, and the tubes coming out of it were more numerous and far bigger than normal towers. It was one of the ancient ones from when we first come into Lyoko. When X.A.N.A. had more control over our world. But that was supposed to be in the past. As a safety measure we had locked those towers in a space which was supposed to not be accessible to Lyoko.

As we neared the tower we realized what had been released onto Lyoko. Where there once had been empty space there now floated a gigantic platform, larger than any human city. On it were hundreds of towers similar to the one which we had been moving towards. I began to get the fear that I had been suppressing for a long time. Whom ever the designers of this virtual world had been, they had given it far to much control over our world. These towers literally gave X.A.N.A. godlike powers.

"It just suddenly appeared a few minutes ago." Aelita told us. "I don't know how. I thought we had deleted it for good."

Yumi and I looked at each other and nodded. It had appeared only moments after we had chosen yes on the computer display. The two had to be linked somehow. That was definitely where Odd and Jeremie were. All we had to do was go over there and get them. That wouldn't be to hard, right? We could do this easily right? I sighed, I could only hope that it would be easy, but there was no way of telling.

"Alright, lets go." I said and for good measure I drew my sward.

We began running, which in Lyoko is much different than on earth, here, even though we breathed heavily as we ran, we didn't ever really run out of breath. Because of this we never really had to stop, but we did, as humans do, stop eventually, to catch our virtual breath. This time though, we didn't really have to. This time we were so close to where we needed to get that the only reason we had to stop was to not fall off of the virtual cliff and into the virtual void. We looked on in awe at the virtual island. It was one of the most ancient parts of Lyoko, if not the most. It would have been considered a city if it were real; being separate from the mountain region it loomed up from the virtual void to an amazing height. The city dwarfed even Mount Everest in its height; even so some of the towers were looming far beyond what we could see from where we were. The amount of towers closely grouped together was baffling, but because we lived in a city the effect wasn't as impressive. What truly horrified me was the distance between us and the island. There was no way we could cross it because there were no bridges that lead to or from it. Even though we had originally started in that part of Lyoko, back when we called it Xanadu, we had only managed to make it over to this side when we met Aelita. None of us really knew how we had managed to get to this side, none of the tunnels between passage towers lead to that side of the gap.

"How are we going to get over there?" Yumi asked.

"We will fly." Aelita responded.

Yumi and I looked at her surprised. We all knew that none of the gang had the ability to fly, and only Aelita had the ability to manipulate the code of Lyoko and thus the surroundings. But to make a bridge from this side to that would be far to taking on her, it would ultimately end up destroying her. No, when she said 'We fly,' she meant something else, but what?

My question was answered very quickly but I didn't realize it at first. What I first noticed was the buzzing sound of four hornets. I quickly looked around to see where they were coming from and realized that they were rising up in front of us. I got ready to attack but Aelita held up her hand; surprised I waited. What I noticed first about the hornets was their size. They were bigger than hornets usually were. The mosquito like mouth and bee like stinger were gone, but the eight wings were still there flapping like mad. The next thing that I noticed was that they seemed to be wearing something that looked almost like a chair. I could see that Yumi, Aelita and I could easily fit on any one of them. The final thing that I noticed was that there were five of them.

"So, um, Aelita, how did you get a hold of these?" I asked.

"Well, I had never tried to get control of X.A.N.A.'s monsters before, not seriously anyway, and for some reason today I decided to try." Aelita told us. "As you can see it worked. Oh, and I found that I could manipulate their structure, but that's another matter. Come on." With that she climbed onto one of the modified hornets and got into the seat.

Yumi glanced at me as I glanced at her. We weren't really comfortable riding on something that we normally destroyed, but we had to get Jeremie and Odd and we had to do it fast. We climbed on and I found that it was very similar to riding a horse, except that the front of the horse was up higher than the back. The experience changed even more as we began flying out over the virtual abyss. I tried not to look down but I couldn't help it, slowly I inched my way over to one side of the creature and glanced downward. Suddenly, as the wind from both the creature's wings and from out movement pushed against me, I felt myself loose balance and begin to fall. I tried to grab hold of something but it was no use as I fell into nothingness. I could see the fog drawing nearer and the others fading into the distance. Suddenly I passed by the fog and! I blinked, I was still on the hornet, nothing had happened.

As we drew nearer to the most ancient part of Lyoko I suddenly began to feel different. I felt stronger, faster, lighter. Now I began to remember that in the ancient part of Lyoko I had been able to jump ten times higher than in the parts where we usually were. It was far different here, the coding of the virtual world made things happen that, even in Lyoko, weren't natural. Some of us believed that Lyoko was originally intended to be modeled off of a real world. Jeremie, of all people, had come up with that. This part of Lyoko certainly did look more realistic, as though it were modeled off of a real place. But the worst part about it, the most frightening, was the ghosts. Dark creatures that, even though they were weaker than X.A.N.A.'s normal monsters, still were able to become far more deadly than even X.A.N.A. himself. These things were able to leak into our world, and X.A.N.A. used them to take control of things.

We were close enough to land now, which was good because distortions in the hornets were beginning to form. They were disappearing beneath us. I began to hope and pray that this wouldn't end up being a one way trip... Quickly we jumped off and began making our way into the pits of this forbidden, forsaken island. We ran as quickly as we could, it was only a matter of time before X.A.N.A. figured out what we were doing, or he already had, and the longer we took the more likely it was that he would find the others before we did. If that happened... I wasn't prepared to think about that. So we ran, trusting in Aelita to know where she was going. At least until...

"Is that a light up ahead?" Yumi asked.

We looked up and saw a glowing multicolored orb floating in the air some meters ahead of us. It was emanating something that was also giving off light. I didn't know what it was, and I doubted that the others did.

"We need to hurry." Aelita said and began moving faster.

Deep within the most ancient part of Lyoko, the original world, two boys suddenly appeared. Their bodies, in the normal Lyokian attire, landed softly on the ground. They were completely undamaged but they were unconscious. Slowly they began to move as, first Jeremie and then Odd began to open their eyes and look around. They both knew the place they were in immediately, having both been there before it was supposedly lost, and they had both assumed that they would never have to be there again. Now, seeing that one of their worst nightmares had come true, they looked around for a way to escape it.

"So, this is where the traveler decided to place us." Jeremie mumbled to himself. "I should have knows that something like this would happen."

"Yeah, who would have ever thought we would have to come back here again." Odd said and then looked at Jeremie. "Oh, I had forgotten what you looked like in Lyoko. I'm not use to seeing you without your glasses."

Jeremie was wearing an earth brown cloak and was holding a staff in one hand and a book in the other. His hair was slightly longer than it usually was, and, of course, he was not wearing glasses. He raised the book and looked at it wearily. Slowly he shook his head and opened it to a page he seemed to know well. Text began appearing as he looked at the blank page and he read it as it appeared. Slowly he sighed and looked over at Odd.

"What's the matter?" Odd asked.

"For some reason I have always been more connected to Lyoko than the rest of you. I don't know why but something the traveler said is beginning to make sense." He moved over to Odd and showed him what was appearing on the book. Odd looked at it in shock but said nothing. "I really am connected to this universe more than you and the others are, because... I really am here."

"That's impossible." Odd said shocked. "You can't be here any more than any of the rest of us are."

"What about Aelita?"

"You know what I mean, Jeremie." Odd said, beginning to act more and more out of character. "This isn't funny. How could you _really_ be here?"

Jeremie sighed again and looked Odd directly in the face. "I know that I am always acting as the genius of the group. I know that I am the practical one and I am not supposed to believe in impossible things... But look around us Odd, how much of this seems possible to you? Does it make sense that a being in a virtual world can somehow cross over into ours and take control of things? Not to mention taking control of completely inanimate objects with no electronics in them? None of this really seems possible, it isn't. Scientifically speaking none of this should exist, not even me..."

"You can't mean that?" Odd gasped. "Can you?"

"Odd, something that no one knows about me is that I can control some things... Like Yumi I am able to do things that no one else can. For instance ever since I can remember I have been having these dreams where I go into a kind of space and come back out in another universe. At first I thought that they were just dreams, but when just recently, I met the traveler for the first time I suddenly realized that they are real. Everywhere I went was real..."

"What are you saying?"

"I am saying that I can travel into other universes. I have been able to, not only when I am asleep but when I am awake as well. How do you think I met Aelita? Some online chat-room?"

"That's what you told us..." Odd said innocently.

Suddenly a shot was fired and a laser flew a few centimeters from Odds head. They both looked to where the shot had been fired from and saw a series of monsters moving at them quickly and firing at will. All of X.A.N.A.'s monsters were there, including the dark cloud and a few that they still didn't understand or have a name for. They looked at each other and nodded; the fight was on.

"Looks like the welcome is all out this time." Odd said, dropping back into his usual persona.

"Yeah, I guess X.A.N.A. decided to get rid of us before the others could find us." Jeremie replied. "But... That isn't going to happen."

Jeremie raised both hands above his head and the book flew open. He grasped the staff with both hands as the book flew in the air, its pages flipping madly. The end of Jeremie's staff began to glow a whitish blue light and he thrust it down on the ground beneath him. A bright light flew through the ground beneath him and Odd and a shock wave went through the air. As it neared the monsters they began to visibly be thrown back. Some of the smaller monsters began to vibrate violently as others began to burn. It was a massive and gruesome attack and the light from it rose above the tower nearest them.

When all of the monsters were gone Jeremie fell to the ground breathing heavily. Odd quickly moved over to him and checked to make sure he was all right. Jeremie looked up and pointed in the sky and quickly Odd pointed his wrist at what Jeremie was pointing at. The large object, which was actually five large objects, spread out and descended around them. As the neared they heard voices. When they looked to see who it was they were pleasantly surprised to see three human shapes running to them who could only be Ulrich, Yumi and Aelita. Odd got up to great them but Jeremie grabbed his arm and pointed. When Odd looked where he was pointing he saw a ghostly figure floating in the air. When he looked closer he realized that it was the traveler, but he looked much older...

As the others reached the two and stood looking at them, first at Odd and then at Jeremie, who was still pointing, they began to realize that something must be wrong and looked up as well. Shocked they each drew a weapon, except Aelita who didn't have one.

"Who the hell are you?" Ulrich demanded.

_Now Ulrich, that's no way to talk to someone who just saved you and your friends lives._ The ancient traveler said in a calm voice. _I have only come to finish the job. I mean this, of course, in the best of ways. There is no reason for you to all remember what has happened in recent times. I have reset your world, as best I can from here, and at this time, but I now need to reset your minds. When I am done, only one of you will remember any of this, and that will only seem like a 'dream'._

The traveler waived his hands and one by one the children dropped into a sleep...


	5. Life and Death

Ok, sorry about this people, I wasn't able to modify it in the normal program so I don't know how it will turn out.  
Also this is the saddest chapter that I have written, and probably the longest. So, uh, enjoy.

Wack! I woke up with a start and looked around me. The other kids in the room were laughing, I could only assume at me. It wasn't like it was the first time I had fallen asleep in class, and I doubted that it would be the last. I looked around, seeing Jeremie, and Ulrich waking up as well, and finally looked at the teacher.

"Well, Odd, would you like to explain yourself?" she asked irritated.

So this must be science... good, then it will be easy to make up an excuse, and make it funny at the same time. I quickly glanced at the board and saw something that I took to say alpha. My mind racing back I remembered that during a previous X.A.N.A. attack Jeremie had explained to us that alpha brain waves were the sleeping brain waves, or something like that anyway...

"Well, all this talk about sleep made me sleepy..." I said and waited, but no laughter followed.

I quickly glanced at Ulrich and then over to Jeremie. Jeremie was holding up his hand to his head and shaking them miserably. I looked at the board and saw that I had misinterpreted what I had seen. It hadn't been the word 'alpha' but rather the symbol in some long equation that began to make me dizzy just looking at it.

"Oh, I must have been confused." I said trying again. "_That_ made me sleepy..." I pointed to the board and pretended to nod off again.

"Well, if it bores you so much, why don't you explain it to us?" Ms. Hertz asked.

"Uh..." I said helplessly.

Now I was in trouble. There was no way that I would be able to explain all of what was on the board. I didn't even know what it was about. Desperately I searched for a title or something that would help me, but there was just the equation.

"Now Mr. Della-Robbia." Ms. Hertz demanded.

Mournfully I walked up to the board and looked at the class, my subjects of misery... now at least. I remembered how many times I had made them laugh, thinking of each one as a precious memory. Then I looked at Sissi and saw the smug look on her face. _She_ was enjoying this. I knew she was enjoying watching me squirm in front of everyone.

Slowly I turned around and looked at the monster of an equation. I looked it over once, desperately trying to figure out what it might be and I reached the end. Then, trying it again, I started at the beginning and suddenly felt the room drop away. Everything changed slightly more purple and just a little crooked, as though I was looking through a bad pair of binoculars. Realizing that I must be having a vision of some kind, as I had many times in the past, I became a little more attentive.

As I watched I noticed that I was looking at a piece of paper. On the paper was the equation that I was supposed to be working on right now. A hand appeared with a pencil on it and began working on the equation in front of me. I watched wondering what good this would do me, I would probably forget how to do it again when it finished and I really had to do the problem. I continued to watch until it ended and I felt myself drop back into my body. Now the hard work would begin, but as I looked at the board I suddenly realized that everything that I had watched the hands in the vision do I had done myself.

Shocked I turned around and looked at my subjects. Their jaws were dropped and hanging open, but as I looked around to Sissi to see if she still had the smug grin on he face I got another shock. She was still grinning, but it wasn't smug. It was less of an evil grin, kinder, gentler, even, friendly... No, I quickly shook the thought out of my head, bowed and went back to my seat.

When I got there Ulrich looked at me in a funny way but said nothing. I glanced over to Jeremie and saw that he was scribbling madly on a piece of paper, probably checking my work... but the greatest part was the look on Ms. Hertz face. She was astounded. I had never seen her look so shocked, and when she recovered enough to move she walked up to the board and looked the equation over. I suddenly began to hope that I hadn't made any errors in my blind mathematical spark of genius.

Suddenly she turned around and looked at me intently. _Now I've done it..._ I thought to myself.

"Chalk" she said simply.

I looked down at my hands and saw that I was still holding the chalk from the board. I smiled slightly and handed it to her. When they realized what had happened everyone laughed. Everything was right again...

---

Class had ended and we were getting out of class. Everyone was shocked at Odd's spark of genius, especially Jeremie. He had continued to try and work out the problem all of class but had continued to miss something. One of the most surprising things, other than Jeremie's failure, was how fast Odd had done the problem. It had given him a real excuse for falling asleep in class, and, fortunately for Jeremie and I, had made everyone else forget that we had as well. And that was the strange thing, why had we all fallen asleep at the same time?

"Ok, Odd, how did you do it?" Jeremie finally asked as we neared a door.

"I just did it." He said, and then laughed. "I guess that makes me the genius now, doesn't it, Einstein?"

"Yeah, when the cube root of negative nine equals pi." Jeremie replied.

Odd stopped and stared at Jeremie for a moment thinking. Then he laughed and said, "Oh, I get it."

"Sure Odd, sure." Jeremie retorted.

We passed through the door into the courtyard and were suddenly ambushed by Sissi. I looked around for Nicolas or Herb but they were no where to be seen. This was strange, Sissi never hung around without her too goons. I began to wonder what this meant, perhaps she had somehow decided to change and become a decent person... and maybe Odd really was smarter than Jeremie. Both were unlikely and I knew it. Sissi had probably just gotten tired of her only friends and had decided to ditch them.

"Excuse me Ulrich." Sissi said approaching me. "May I please speak to you?"

"About what?" I asked skeptically.

"Um, I would rather talk to you alone." She replied glancing at Jeremie and Odd. "Please."

"_Maybe_ later." I said.

"Yeah, when you grow a neuron or two." Odd said and started laughing at his joke.

"Ha, ha, I haven't heard that one before." Sissi replied calmly to Odd, and then looked at me again. "Please, Ulrich, I need to ask you something."

This was beginning to get very strange. Normally if Odd made a joke like that she would have gotten exasperated, made a rude comment back, and left. Instead she took it calmly, made a sarcastic comment, and continued trying. Something must have been going on for her to act so differently. Perhaps Odd was... no, not possible.

"Ok, Sissi, later." I repeated calmly, and without any sarcasm in my voice.

That shocked all of them, but Sissi recovered first. "You promise?" she asked.

"As long as you don't call me '_dear_'." I replied.

"Thank you, Ulrich." She said and walked off.

Now the others recovered from the shock and they both looked me over carefully. I could tell by the look on Odd's face that he was about to make a comment, and the look on Jeremie's face that he thought something was wrong with me. I was just glad that Yumi hadn't been there; _that_ would have been bad...

"Ok, X.A.N.A. what have you done with the real Ulrich?" Odd asked, but somehow he sounded serious.

"Somehow I am inclined to agree with Odd this time, Ulrich. There is no way that you would have done what you just did without something being out of place..."

"Yeah, and it was Sissi. She was acting differently, not so much of an arrogant... um, well, how she usually acts." I told them. "This time, somehow, she was acting more like... a... um..."

"Human?" Yumi finished my sentence for me.

I jumped. I hadn't heard her coming up behind me. This is bad, how much had she heard? What would she think? Quickly I turned around to see what expression she had on her face and, to my relief, she was smiling.

"How long have you been there?" I asked.

"I had been waiting next to the door for the three of you." she replied calmly. "So I heard all of it." Then she must have realized how I felt because she added, "Don't worry, I agree with you, Ulrich. There is something different about her."

I sighed in relief. So Yumi wasn't angry with me; that was good. But even better, she agreed with me. Now I wouldn't have to lie... that was always a good thing. But there was still the matter of...

"Don't worry, I don't mind." She replied before I could say anything. "But I also need to talk with you, all of you." she said. "And that included Aelita."

"Yeah, something's going on here." Odd said.

"Oh, does this mean you all remember?" Jeremie asked in excitement.

"Remember what?" I asked.

"What happened before we woke up." He said as though it was obvious.

"So you three were caught asleep as well?" Yumi asked.

"Yeah, but don't you remember what happened before?"

As a matter of fact I didn't. I couldn't remember anything before I woke up. It was like my memory had been erased, or something. It was simply a blank to me, and it wasn't like I had stayed up late last night either. And unless the school's food or water was drugged that possibility was out...

"What did happen before?" Odd asked curiously.

"Uh-" but he stopped himself. "No, maybe I shouldn't tell. Never mind, it was only a dream." He dismissed the thought. "Anyway, let's go talk to Aelita, right Yumi?"

When we reached Jeremie's room we sat down and waited for Jeremie to contact Lyoko. Most of the dorm rooms in Kadic Junior High were built for two students to sleep in. There really was only enough room for beds and a desk at the bottom of the beds. When he had first come to this school he had roomed with someone, they had become friends almost immediately. The other kid was as much of a genius as Jeremie was, and when Jeremie found Lyoko and Aelita they both started trying to help Aelita. At first, when they discovered the factory, the other kid and Jeremie would trade off who went in and who did the scanning process. That was before Odd or I had come to the school, and before Yumi had joined the gang. It was also before the factory was forever changed...

"Ok, I have a link." Jeremie announced as a window appeared with Aelita's face in it.

"Hello everyone," Aelita said in her usual shy kindness. "How is everything on earth?"

"Well, that's the thing;" Jeremie replied. "Some of us are noticing some strange things. Have you been feeling any pulsations?" then his face seemed to change suddenly. He looked as though he wanted to ask something but couldn't find the right words for it. "Uh, do... no, never mind."

"I haven't felt any pulsations recently, though there were some reverberations, or a resonance just under an hour ago." Aelita said. "It was as though something in Lyoko had suddenly changed, something big."

"I-" But he stopped again and said, "Yumi had something she wanted to tell us, and she wanted you to hear it as well."

"Yes," Yumi agreed. "It was very strange. I had fallen asleep and my teacher woke me up, but before I was woken I had this very strange dream."

Yumi told us her dream, about the city having been destroyed, and sensing death at the end. Somehow I felt as though I had heard it before, but I decided no to say anything. When she finished telling it she asked the simple and straightforward question, "Is there any way that X.A.N.A. could have an effect like that again?"

"No," Aelita said, appearing to be a little disturbed. "Not unless he somehow managed to release Xanadu. That was the only machine that had enough power to affect your world in that way."

"But didn't we destroy Xanadu?" Odd asked alarmed. "I mean, a life was..."

Everyone grew quiet. It was then, that X.A.N.A. attack, back near the beginning, when the first and currently only death had happened. It had been very hard on us at the time, we all lost a very good friend then, but it had affected Jeremie the most. But in return for the death X.A.N.A. had been weakened so much that he would never be able to cause mass destruction again. The Xanadu program had been destroyed along with its attached machine, or so we had thought.

"No, Odd, Xanadu was not destroyed, it merely became dormant. That part of Lyoko has been locked ever since the incident." Aelita told him. "And, unfortunately, it can be awoken."

"If it was somehow awoken wouldn't our powers begin to accelerate again?" I asked remembering what it was like back then.

Back before the factory changed to what it was now, and when the Xanadu was still active, our powers, or rather abilities, had been accelerated. Each one of us had one or more ability that was so rare among humans that they were either considered gifts or curses. Yumi had a telepathic and telekinetic ability, Odd had an ability to have premonitions and to see things that were happening in places that were not anywhere near him, but Jeremie's and my abilities were more illusive. Even though I had an ability to move quickly and split myself into more than one person in Lyoko I did not have the same ability on earth. I did have agility but it wasn't the same. And none of really knew what Jeremie's ability was.

"I don't really know." Aelita said. "But it's a possibility. The Xanadu device had been active for a long time before we managed to shut it down. I honestly don't really know how long, but I think it would take it a long time to take that kind of effect again."

"Then why are our powers becoming active again?" Odd blurted out.

We all stared at him, startled at his sudden outburst. It wasn't like Odd didn't frequently do things like this, but it was what he said that had startled us. Yumi having a vision of some kind didn't mean our powers were reawakening. Her abilities had always been awake to an extent, so why would this be any different? Unless...

"Odd, is there something you aren't telling us?" I asked.

"Uh, well, you see..." he stammered trying to avoid our gaze. "Yes," he sighed. "The only way that I was able to solve that equation that Ms. Hertz had on the board was because I saw it happening in front of me. It was like having a premonition except it seemed to be happening at the same time. So I guess it was more like my other ability..."

"I knew it!" Jeremie exclaimed.

Now we all stared at Jeremie. He blushed and proceeded to explain himself. "I had been trying to understand the equation the entire class, after we woke up of course." He told us. "But I don't think even Ms. Hertz really understood it. It seemed to be something having to do with the workings of space and time..." then he became thoughtful for a moment. "I wonder..." and he began typing furiously on his computer.

"Aelita, you told us that you felt a resonance shortly before we came to talk to you." Yumi began. "Do you remember when that was?"

"I think it was somewhere around eleven thirty, why?" she asked.

"Did you seem to become more alert just as the resonance died down?"

"Yes," Aelita agreed, "It was as though I had woken up, but that's impossible because I don't sleep."

"Oh, that's because-" Jeremie started and stopped abruptly. "Never mind. It was just something I read."

"Ok," Odd said. "Is it just me or does it seem like Jeremie has something he wants to say?"

"No," Jeremie jumped. "It isn't anything. I just keep having a thought, but it's a stupid thought."

"You seem to really want to tell us." Yumi pointed out. "It can't be that stupid, you have tried five times now."

"You wouldn't believe me anyway." Jeremie told us. "It really isn't anything."

That struck me. Very little was ever nothing to Jeremie. If it wasn't important he just didn't bother to say anything. If he kept trying like this then it must mean that something was wrong...

"Jeremie..." I started.

"Jeremie!" Aelita almost yelled. "I'm sensing pulsations, two of them."

"Two, your kidding." Jeremie replied. "How can you feel two? How can X.A.N.A. activate two towers at the same time?"

"I don't know but you better get down here quickly. I think this is going to be bad. There is a massive surge of data flooding through Lyoko. If this continued everything could be destroyed... overwritten."

"Is it a virus?" Jeremie asked his voice suddenly panicked.

"I don't know," Aelita told him, fear in her voice, but a hint of awe as well. "Sometimes it acts like a virus but other times it doesn't... Please hurry and get here, Jeremie. I'm... I'm scared."

Suddenly the link was cut and the window disappeared. We all jumped at a crack of lightening outside. It had gotten visibly darker, and there was a headwind blowing sharply across the school.

"This doesn't look good." I said looking outside. "What if..."

"Ulrich! Don't." Jeremie snapped.

A little shocked I said, "Ok, let's go."

---

Within Lyoko Aelita sat watching the data stream flooding across the screens around her. She was sitting within a tower when Jeremie had contacted her so it was easy to watch as the data came into the supercomputer. It had started so subtly that she had barely noticed it at first, and she had really only noticed it when the first two towers were activated. Now the screens were flashing madly with text of many different kinds, and Aelita sat watching, waiting. She really didn't know what to expect from this, she had never seen anything like it happen before. It really was impossible to tell if it was a virus or not, the coding seemed to continue to change with every passing second...

Suddenly she made the horrifying discovery that the coding of what ever was passing through Lyoko was similar to her coding, and even worse, it was similar to X.A.N.A.'s coding. As she watched she made another discovery, what ever this program was it seemed to be taking over all coding within Lyoko. It was literally consuming the computer code and incorporating it into itself, and as it did this it activated every tower that it passed. She didn't know what kind of an effect this would have on earth, but she could feel its effect on Lyoko. The pulsations were becoming maddening, but she had to continue watching the program. She had to find out what it was doing, and she had to see what X.A.N.A.'s reaction would be to it.

As she continued to watch she came up with an idea. She made a short program that would show her how much of Lyoko was consumed by this viral program. When she looked at it she noticed that it was taking over the environmental programming first, and reaching each tower in turn. It had started in the mountain region, but had jumped over to the dessert region. Most of the mountain region was already lost, and it was moving very quickly. She was currently in the glacier region, one away from the desert region. When the viral program passed through the forest region she would only have a few minutes to wait before it would reach the tower she was in.

She took another approach to the program. Quickly she organized the list of Lyoko programs in order that the viral program was consuming them. To her utter horror she had already been consumed five percent. The list went like this: sub-basic programs, environmental mapping, regions, creatures, her, and X.A.N.A. Currently X.A.N.A. hadn't been consumed at all, but he wasn't doing anything either. Aelita didn't know if this was good or bad, but she could only hope that her friends would get here in time. But, then, another thought occurred to her, if any of them entered Lyoko the viral program would begin to consume them as well.

Now she was really beginning to panic, she thought quickly of a way to prevent her friends from getting into Lyoko. She couldn't let them be destroyed by the viral program, even if it would mean that she would be destroyed. She knew that there was no way of getting word to them, that was made obvious when the link had been cut. The only other way was to shut down and block the scanners. Quickly she accessed the program that ran the scanners and found that it was already far to corrupt for it to be used anyway... slightly comforted, but completely alone, she sat back and continued to watch the viral program's advancements, waiting for her inevasible destruction.

---

We had reached the factory now and Ulrich, Odd and I were waiting in the scanner room for Jeremie to give us the ok. But something must have been wrong, we had been waiting down here for nearly ten minutes and we hadn't heard a single word from him. I was beginning to get the feeling that something really bad was happening, bit I didn't know what. Looking around I also noticed that the others were feeling uncomfortable. This was just not right; we had to find out what was going on.

I began waling to the elevator but just as I reached it the door opened and we saw Jeremie in it. He was looking at the floor, holding his head in his hands. When he noticed the door was open he looked up and walked in. He seemed to be very weary, almost as if a great exhaustion had swept over him. As he walked he sagged almost exaggeratedly, his entire body drooping to one side, but his face was the worst of it. I almost knew immediately what must have happened.

"I can't get into Lyoko." He told us bluntly. "Many of the files are being corrupted by some _thing_. I don't know what it is but I can't get rid of it from out here and we can't get into Lyoko."

"What will we do then?" Odd asked. "We have to save Aelita. There must be some way."

"X.A.N.A. is already doing his best to fight against whatever is corrupting Lyoko but his progress is slow and whatever this thing is, it's very fast."

"So, how long do we have?" I asked.

"I can see about an hour at most." He said with a heavy sigh. "But it could be less, or possibly more."

"Are you sure that there is nothing we could do?" Ulrich asked, his eyes on the ground.

Jeremie slumped to the ground with a soft thud. He looked around for a moment and then held his head. As I watched I could almost feel his thoughts desperately searching for an answer. He scoured his mind, his memory, for any hint that might help. Then, suddenly, he looked up, a look of renewal in his eyes. After sitting for a moment longer he stood up and looked at us.

"Ok, there might be a chance but I need a CD." He told us. "It is a very special CD which I believe may be able to help us."

"Ok, where is it?" I asked.

"It should be on my desk." Jeremie replied quickly. "We have to get it and get back as quickly as possible."

"Alright, let's go." Ulrich said and we started off out of the factory towards Jeremie's dorm room.

---

Aelita had been watching the viral program infect the files of Lyoko for a quarter hour now and she was starting to get tired of doing nothing about it. X.A.N.A. was doing a nice job of stopping the program's process, or at the very least slowing it down, but he wasn't able to completely stop it alone. For most of the time Aelita had been viewing the coding of the program that was destroying her home and her, and she knew a little about how it worked. The program seemed to take computer coding and read it through, viewing what it did. Then, after reading the coding, it would change it slightly. The coding would suddenly change from hexadecimal or binary to something that looked like quad-decimal. The coding seemed to take a pattern of As Ts Cs and Gs. Likewise, the Gs and Cs seemed to follow each other and the Ts and As seemed to do the same. But the strange thing was that this seemed to be just like the genetic coding of organic matter, and worse than that there seemed to be something more to the coding as well.

After a while she decided to look at the coding through another program to see what else she could find. When opening it with a wave program she noticed that it seemed to have a sound wave attached to it. Then she tried to open it with an image file and found that it had something that looked like static. Aelita tried a number of different programs in opening the corrupted coding and found a number of different things that shouldn't have been there. After a while she began to realize what was happening. The viral program was changing the coding into a sort of organic coding. The genetic DNA sequence was obvious but after a while she began to understand what the others were as well. It all added up now, it was making the programs and files into living organic matter, if only they weren't stored within a computer...

With this knowledge in mind she watched with fascination as the viral program fought with X.A.N.A. and continued to destroy the world around her. Aelita knew that the computer wouldn't be able to understand what she had realized, and that she and everything within Lyoko was doomed, but now she had a greater understanding of why... and at least there was that.

Jeremie scampered into his room desperately looking for the disk which the traveler had sent him. Since time had reset it should still be sitting on his desk where he had placed it, right? He ran over to his desk and looked for the disk that had the traveler's insignia on it. He moved his other CDs around looking for it, barely noticing that he had left his door open. The others looked in on him awe struck. They understood that he was feeling but they didn't understand why he was reacting like this.

Frustrated Jeremie began looking under his desk, and then around it. The CD wasn't anywhere he looked and he was beginning to panic more and more as his options began to disappear. It was impossible, he knew that it had to be here. He had placed it on his desk directly before the incident... then during the storm he had run to the factory to try and see if it was a X.A.N.A. attack...

Someone began walking calmly toward Jeremie's room. The other's barely noticed her as she neared it. She walked up next to Ulrich and said, "Hello, Ulrich. Would you mind moving for a moment?"

"Oh, hey Sissi." Ulrich replied in a kind of daze and moved out of her way.

Sissi walked into Jeremie's room and directly up to Jeremie. She calmly tapped him on the back as he franticly looked for the CD under his bead. Jeremie stood up and turned to look at her. "What are you doing in here?" he asked.

"Jeremie, did you try looking in the last place you put it?"

"What are you talking about?" Jeremie asked.

"Think for a moment. You didn't leave it in your room, you brought it with you and it's still in..."

"The computer in the factory!" Jeremie yelped and got up to leave the room. But he turned around to thank Sissi, yet she wasn't there. Confused he looked around his room but she wasn't anywhere to be seen. "Come on guys, I must have left it in the factory."

"We heard her too, Einstein." Odd replied and they headed back to the factory.

Somewhere bordering this existence the traveler was sitting and looking out a large window overlooking a plane within Aricitopia. A tall woman was quietly walking up behind him about to jump on him. He sighed and said, "Hello Ginda. I see you have returned."

"What? Oh, can't you even act surprised?" Ginda said. She was very tall, somewhere around seven feet at least; her chestnut hair was long and let out. Her eyes were a brownish-green with a hint of grey-blue. She was wearing a long flowing dark blue dress and a pure white lock of hair was turning back to chestnut brown.

"Did you find out what I wanted?" the traveler asked.

"Of course; I'm not sure it is time yet though." She replied.

"Good, I have a somewhat more urgent matter to attend to first and I can't watch over the gariad."

"Why the melancholy?" Ginda asked a look of concern crossing her face.

"Remember the hunch that I felt in the gariad universe?" the traveler asked.

"Yes, I just returned from there..."

"I was mistaken about where it would hit first." He told her. "I should have known that it would be in a lyokian universe."

"What? How?" Ginda asked.

"He would need a way of getting some power back before he could do much else. So instead of trying what I thought he was going to do he instead waits for me to make the first move." The traveler sighed. "This is getting bad, and it is beginning to resemble the chronicles of destruction."

"Oh, and what did you do this time?" Ginda asked a note of sarcasm and disapproval in her voice.

"I tried to help Jeremie. I gave him a CD with the computer version of the Aricitic virus on it."

"And?"

"Jeremie used it."

"And..."

"Well, let's just say that our enemy has thought ahead and just recently figured out a way to regain the power that I took from him."

"How?" Ginda nearly yelled in shock.

"He moved himself into the Lyoko universe of these particular lyokians just when Jeremie used the disk. The result was that he took control of the disks sub-functions and got the virus back within himself."

Ginda looked out across the field, her eyes appearing to blank and then she gasped. "We have to help them."

"I would already be there if I could, but the universe isn't allowing me passage at the moment." The traveler said. "I was lucky that I could get the disk in at all."

"Well, have you contacted the universes 'gods'?" Ginda asked.

"That wouldn't help; the gods within the lyokian universes don't take humanoid shape. Initially they are the universes themselves. Talking to them wouldn't help."

"So what do we do?" Ginda asked.

"We wait and watch." The traveler said, and then added, "and hope that they can fix my mess."

"But if she dies..." her voice trailed off.

"I know, three years. All unprepared deaths take three years..."

"Stupid rule..."

"I know, but for some reason it is necessary." The traveler responded. "At least we can work with it, usually it's impossible..."

Jeremie had returned to the factory, his friends in close pursuit. He ran to the computer console and checked to see if the disk which he had been looking for was actually in the tray. It was. He sighed in relief. Now all he had to do was try and figure out how to use it. That would be the hard part, but, he was Jeremie, computer super genius. If it had to do with computers he would be able to figure it out. He opened the command line and accessed the CD. A window came up with striking clarity, the graphics on the CD were impossibly good to be able to fit on the CD. He began looking for anything that might be of some help. He found the Anti-Viral and Anti-Spyware program again, but when he clicked on it this time a different program appeared. It did an impossibly quick scan on the computer and came up with a report, 'Computer 73 infected: Virus,' it listed a number of viruses, one of which caught Jeremie's eye. The virus was called Aricitic and it had the highest amount of infection. A little red button was flashing at the bottom of the screen which read "stop and initiate anti-virus'.

Jeremie was baffled, what a stupid thing to say. Of course he wanted it to stop the virus and initiate the anti-virus. He quickly clicked the button and watched as the screen flashed into a very strange looking display. The display was cut in thirds, the top was what looked like a normal Lyoko display, the second was something that appeared to be hexadecimal, and the third was what appeared to be a genetics display except that it had two extra letters. On the right of each display was a command line and a percentage bar. The command line was going insane with file names and the percentage was rapidly going up. Suddenly Jeremie's eye caught the program that rematerialized people in the real world, and a sudden hope welled up within him.

Quickly Jeremie accessed the program which he had written, the one to materialize Aelita. He made a few adjustments and initiated the program. Now all he could do was pray that it worked...

Within Lyoko Aelita was still watching as the viral program consumed everything around her. She wasn't afraid any more, she knew that there was nothing that anyone could do. X.A.N.A. had fought bravely to save both of them but he had failed miserably and had been consumed first. Now she was utterly alone in Lyoko. There was nothing that she could do, nothing that any one could do...

She looked up and saw that he code had been nearly half consumed. She sighed and sat back. She didn't feel any different... well, that wasn't true. She was beginning to feel, how could she explain it... more alive. She was breathing, she could feel the blood pumping in her veins... it was almost like back on earth, but Aelita knew that it must just be an illusion. She was delirious... there, see, she knew it now. The percentage that told her how much she had been consumed, and how much Lyoko had been consumed was going down...

Aelita jerked back into full alertness. She had been on the verge of dozing, which was new for her, at least in Lyoko. She now looked at the numbers a little more closely. Some of them were going down and some of them were going up slower. It was impossible... how could this be happening, X.A.N.A. was dead. Quickly Aelita opened the task manager and saw what programs were being run in Lyoko. Two stuck out that she hadn't seen there before: ANTVK.ent and ANTARK.exe. 'ent? That was new, she hadn't ever heard of a program extension being called ent before. But one of them must be the program that was removing the virus, but which one?

"Wait a second, what the hell is he doing?" the traveler jumped in surprise.

"What?" Ginda asked shocked by the traveler's outrage.

"Jeremie stopped the Aricitic virus before it finished. Now it's applying the antivirus."

"But wouldn't that be a good thing?" Ginda asked shifting her weight in the chair that she was sitting in. "We want the Aricitic virus out of Lyoko, don't we?"

"Yes, but not yet. First it needs to..." he stopped suddenly and made a vulgar sound. "No." he moaned. "The idiot... the fool..."

"What's the matter now?" Ginda asked.

"Jeremie is activating the program that he made, the one to materialize Aelita." He made another vulgar noise and said a few swear words. "Aelita is still half infected with the Aricitic virus, the computer version takes a while to do either job... if he materializes her now she will die for sure. She will literally- No, the fool!"

"Is there anything that we can do?" Ginda asked, her voice shaken and a look of concern crossing her face.

"I am trying to contact him but I have been completely blocked..." he looked around helplessly and then made a few gestures in the air. After a while, as nothing happened he turned to Ginda. "Can you?"

"A little, I can feel inside the universe, but it isn't stable. What the hell is going on in there?"

"I'm not sure..." the traveler said and made the gestures again. "Damn, Ginda, can you contact Gwydevis?"

"Gwydevis? What do you need him for?"

"_He_ should be able to get in there... because of his previous excursions he isn't as limited in certain ways that I am. If any of us can get in there it should be him." He paused to think for a moment. "On second thought, you both better go."

"Got it. I'll see what I can do." Then she suddenly vanished.

"Now this isn't going very well. It went better the first time..." the traveler muttered, almost as though he were speaking to someone.

"Damn! Why won't this work?" I yelled.

I had tried to activate the materialization program a number of times but it hadn't been able to initiate a single one of them. It would open and then crash almost immediately. Each time I would check back to see how much progress the antivirus was having. Something seemed to be wrong because it kept going back over files that it had already fixed. I couldn't figure out why it would do that, but then, I didn't really understand much about what was going on right now. This was all going badly, worse even than any of the X.A.N.A. attacks that we had ever had, and it was all because of... the disk?

I initiated the program again, fully expecting it to crash, but this time it fully loaded. Quickly, desperately, I selected Aelita and began the materialization process. Now all I could do was pray that it would work, and, well, get down to the scanners to help her when she arrived on earth again. I quickly got up and scampered to the elevator. I briefly heard the others following me but the door closed before they reached the elevator. I told the elevator to go down one floor and waited. When the door opened I jumped out and ran to the scanner that she would come out of. I heard the elevator going back up to pick up the others, but I ignored it.

The door opened and a smoky fog came out of it. Aelita was lying on the floor of the scanner tube, curled up into a ball. I bent down and gently pulled her out of it. Gently I picked her up, still kneeling on the floor, and slumped into a sitting position. I quickly pulled her to me in a hug, just happy that she was alive, and heard her cough. Slowly I released her allowing her to lay on my legs and saw that her eyes were open. She smiled wearily and I saw tears in her eyes.

"I thought I would never see you again..." she said in a weak voice and coughed.

"I did everything I could to change that." I replied, my voice trembling.

"I..." she coughed, a hacking, tearing, cough. "I wish I could have returned with a better reason."

"You are here now." I replied.

She coughed again, the same painful cough, but this time I noticed something that made my hart fall. She had coughed up blood... this couldn't be happening. I couldn't loose Aelita, I simply couldn't loose her. It wasn't fair.

I pulled her to me again feeling hot tears coming to my eyes. I couldn't loose her, I loved her. I just... I...

"Jeremie," Aelita said, putting a finger to one of my eyes and taking it away with a tear on it. "I love you..."

Suddenly she bent over in a convulsion of pain, then her body relaxed and she fell back onto me again. I looked into her eyes but they were dead... I reached over to close them, a pain like no other flooding my body, but as my hand neared her face something began to happen. Her skin began to fade and crumble, disintegrating as I watched. As I realized what was happening another pain filled my body and I broke down...

The door to the elevator opened and Ulrich, Odd and I hurried out of it. I could see Jeremie sitting in front of one of the scanners with Aelita in his arms, but something was wrong, he was crying. A low moan escaped his mouth just as I looked at Aelita's body. Suddenly I backed away in horror, her body was disintegrating, turning into nothing, not even dust... The process was slow but it was fast enough for all of us to watch in horror and revulsion. When it was complete nothing remained of my pink haired friend, nothing at all.

Jeremie doubled over, his arms still out stretched where Aelita's body had been. I could hear him sobbing and could see his body trembling. He was muttering something that I couldn't hear or understand, until he finally sobbed one word, "Aelita..."

I quickly moved over to him and placed my hand on his back. I knew that it wouldn't do much to comfort him, but it was all that I could think of. I could hear Odd and Ulrich's reactions behind me. I knew what they were thinking, what they were feeling. Aelita had been one of our best friends, but she had been more to Jeremie. She had been to him what Ulrich was to me, and to have her taken away from him like that... it simply wasn't right.

Suddenly I felt a pang in my mind and a touch of an omniscient presence; then there was another. One of the presences which had just appeared felt evil to me, but the other felt almost ultimately good. The good one felt shocked, then regret, and the evil one felt nearly the same. I turned around to look where the feeling was coming from and felt something brush against my mind, but just as my eyes reached where the presence was coming from it suddenly disappeared. The other one followed quickly after it.

I wasn't quite sure but it was almost as though they had come to try and help, but it was to late now. Aelita was dead, and by the way she had gone, no one could bring someone back from the dead.


	6. Mysterious Signs Revised

Well, I believe that I may have managed to insult a few of my audiance by, uh, well, killing off one of the charictors. Things have changed, but they will always be for the better. No matter how bad things can get there is always a light at the end of every tunnel. Anyway, please continue to read to see what I mean.

* * *

It had been a week after the death of Aelita, and because of the strange nature of the way that Aelita died we had had nothing to burry. It was probably best that way since there would have been no way to explain who she was, how we knew her, or how she had died. Jeremie had not taken it well at all, but none of us had expected him to. Odd had become oddly morose, and he hadn't made a joke since before the incident. Yumi had become strangely pensive, and she was usually lost in thought and very quite.

I wasn't entirely sure how I was taking it. Aelita had been a very good friend to all of us and we all loved her, but still I couldn't find any similarity to the others in the way that I was acting. I hadn't been in love with her as Jeremie had, and it wasn't like Yumi had died. I didn't know why Odd was acting the way he was, or why Yumi was acting the way she was either.

After Aelita's death we had decided to shut down the supercomputer. There was no reason to keep X.A.N.A. online now that Aelita was dead. There was also no reason for us to continue to come back to the factory. As we shut down everything there was a feeling of regret, loneliness and sorrow. The factory, Lyoko, and Aelita had been the center of our lives for the past year and a half. Now that it was gone we really had nothing left to do. I had always imagined this day to be a relief, a day of joy and celebration, but then I had also always imagined Aelita being with us.

As we walked out of the factory door and onto the bridge preparing to close the door Jeremie turned to look at the factory for the last time. He stood in a mournful manner, as though he were at a funeral, and began to speak, "Though we only knew her for a short time, Aelita Lyoko entered all of our hearts. There will always be a place there for her, no matter where she is. She may have left us from this world, but she had always been in another in the first place." He paused briefly taking a breath. "Aelita, we will miss you and whether or not there is a heaven I know that you are in a better place..."

Jeremie turned away and Yumi closed the factory door. We crossed the bridge and entered the sewer passage. On the way back to school no one spoke, but no one felt that they needed to. We reached the school just in time for our next class and went our separate ways...

---

It was a week later, Ulrich's gang had been wondering around the school in a near constant state of misery. I had tried to keep Nicolas and Herb from saying anything to damaging. I knew what was going on, none of them thought that I did, but I knew. They had all lost someone that they all loved dearly especially Jeremie. I knew that it had happened to them before; the entire school had been affected by that death though. This time no one else knew about the death of the person they were mourning. I had lost someone very dear to me as well. My mother had died when I was very young and it had hurt me very badly. I guess that was part of the reason why I was so mean to everyone. I had to hide my self from them, from the pain...

Because I was the only one who knew, and because I knew, I felt that I should do something. I felt strongly for Ulrich and for his group of friends, and I had always wanted to be a part of their group. I knew what everyone thought of me, but for some reason I had rarely been able to act like the person that I really was, the two most recent times were once before the incident, but at that time Ulrich had become possessed by something evil. I had felt that presence but had tried anyway. The second time was after, but in the same way. The second time he had agreed to talk with me later, but then after that their friend had died...

Now I knew what I needed to do. It was lunch time and Ulrich's group was sitting at their normal place in the lunch room. I picked up my trey and acted like nothing was different, but as I passed by their table I pretended to drop something. As I bent down I turned to look directly at Jeremie and said, "I'm sorry... I know what it's like to loose someone." Then I stood up straight and walked away as though I hadn't said anything.

Walking toward Nicolas and Herb I began to wonder how they had reacted. I couldn't turn around to see for myself because that would ruin the mystery of what I had done. Sighing I joined my only two friends in the school. They were looking a little confused but that was natural. I had made sure to make it appear to everyone else that I had simply dropped something, and only Ulrich's group should know what I actually did, so when their reaction came it was only natural for everyone else to be a little confused.

"What!" it was Jeremie, raising his voice in shock and outrage.

"Jeremie, calm down." Yumi said, in a hushed practical voice. "I am sure Ulrich meant it in the best of ways."

"Yeah, sure..." Odd said mockingly.

"Well, what I said stands." Ulrich replied.

Wait. I hadn't heard what Ulrich had said, apparently it was important, and it angered two of his friends. I could think of a few things that might do that, but I hoped for the best, which was simply that he would come and talk to me. I hoped that what he had said wasn't that bad, or it just might break up his group, and that wasn't something that I wanted. I simply wanted to talk with him.

Lunch passed and we went back to our classrooms. The class was uneventful, and I began to get board. There seemed to be some discomfort between Jeremie, Odd and Ulrich. I began to get nervous. This wasn't looking good, but I would simply have to wait until after school to find out if I had caused something.

The school day ended abruptly, in the middle of our teacher's sentence and we filed out calmly. I began walking towards the dorm rooms and past the gate. Nicolas and Herb were following me but not too closely, they had learned that sometimes I needed my space... Just as I was passing the gate, which was open, I heard a car screeching. I had just enough time to look past the gate and see a black sports car rushing at me, not five feet away. _Oh, god, I'm going to die._ I thought as I realized what was happening, but then suddenly I felt something else hit me from behind and push me forward out of harms way. I heard the car hit the school wall and come to a crashing halt, but I was safe...

When I got up I saw Ulrich lying on the ground next to me. He wasn't moving... I gasped and faintly heard Yumi scream and come running at us, but half way Ulrich coughed and began to get up. He was alive! I sighed with relief, as I am sure Yumi did as well.

"Ow!" Ulrich said as he put weight on his arm. "Oh, damn."

"Oh, no, is it broken?" Yumi asked, glancing at me.

"Here, let me take a look." I said, "I'm good at-" but they already knew.

I checked Ulrich's arm and found that it was indeed broken. Yumi and I helped him up and we took him to the infirmary. The nurse, who hadn't heard the crash, asked us what happened. We told her and her face when a pale cream color. She picked up a phone and called for an ambulance, then she turned back to Ulrich and a look crossed her face.

"You are sure it is broken?" she asked me.

"Yes, you can check it yourself." I replied.

"But, he should be in more pain."

There was a moment's silence. I thought to myself, shock? But that didn't seem very likely; he would have been out of it by now. Why wasn't he in as much pain as he should be. Then, suddenly, as if an after thought Ulrich began wailing in, what I was sure was, fake pain. The nurse came over and tended to him and Yumi glanced at me again. I knew what she was thinking, but I didn't think it was true, he would have done more for her...

---

I guess having gone to Lyoko so many times had dulled my senses. After all those shots to the body from the various monsters, not to mention the dull pain of being virtualized and materialized, the pain of a broken arm wasn't that bad... I had to pretend to be in pain simply to make them believe that I was, though I wasn't really sure if they bought it...

I had been following Sissi when Yumi met up with me. We had planed on talking to Sissi, since she had requested it, and Yumi and I had decided that she should go along because she had psychic abilities. If Sissi had abilities then Yumi should be able to tell. When I heard the screeching of the cars tires I had looked to see what was happening, then I realized that Sissi was going to get hit. Acting quickly I ran as fast as I could and pulled Sissi out of the way. Unfortunately for me I got hit by the car, but it only got my arm. I had been briefly knocked out, and my arm was broken, but it seemed that nothing else was damaged.

"All right, you will need to not use that arm for a while." The nurse said as I left the infirmary.

As we walked down the hall Yumi kept an eye on Sissi. I wasn't entirely sure what she was thinking, but the glances that Yumi threw at Sissi weren't threatening, nor were they inviting. She seemed more nervous than anything else, but I couldn't think why. I mean, sure I saved Sissi's live, but I would have done the same for anyone else. And besides, Yumi knew that I would do more for her, or at least she should.

It might have been that Sissi was acting differently. She wasn't acting like the spoiled brat that she usually did, but instead she was acting like a mature young woman. She had about her an air of kindness, friendship, self awareness; even wisdom. This was not the Sissi that we all knew and loathed, but instead this was the Sissi that had asked if she could talk to me, alone, and I had replied that I might.

"So, Sissi, you wanted to talk to me about something..." I started off, remembering both that time, and earlier today.

"Oh, yes." she said snapping back to reality out of some deep thought. "I wanted to let you know something, but first I want to say how sorry I am bout the loss of your friend. She was a good person..."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, wavering for a moment. "How do you know?"

"That was what I wanted to tell you. I know everything. About Lyoko, Aelita, the attacks done by X.A.N.A. everything."

"How?" it was Yumi, coming around back into reality as though she had been in the same place that Sissi had.

"About a year an a half ago I began to have dreams, they were like normal school days but something very bad happened in every one. In some of them I would see you all fighting some one or something. Then, I would suddenly awake while still standing or sitting and it would be the same day again, except you two, Jeremie and Odd would act different. Slowly I began to see more and more, not just what was going on around me, but I was usually watching you and your friends." She paused. "I always believed that it was my imagination, until that one day, the funeral... I had seen him die, I knew exactly how it happened, and when we came back earlier in the day he was dead. I knew that it couldn't be a coincidence, so I began to try and see if things would happen if I interfered. Usually I did stupid, mean things because I wasn't entirely sure if you all remembered it, but after a while you all started being mean to me. I then knew that I had been wrong and you always remembered the things that I did, but by then it was to late."

"So you weren't simply being an obnoxious spoiled brad?" I asked, a little harsher than I had meant.

"No, I was trying to test something, but I did it wrong... Anyway, I couldn't bring myself to face you until recently. That was before the last attack, but I am not sure it was exactly an attack. I had come to ask you if I could talk to you, alone because I didn't want to get ganged up on, but you were cruel. Then the time reset itself and I tried again, when you said that you might I decided to let it go for a little while. But then..."

"Then Aelita died." Yumi said. "You saw it happen, but why did you decide to talk to us the way that you did?"

"If I had simply come up to all of you and started talking you would have brushed me off, so I had to make it appear that I was doing something else." She took a breath. "I'm sorry if I caused Jeremie any more grief, or if I caused you two any trouble."

"That's ok." I replied. "I'm sure they will get over it soon enough, besides..."

"Besides?"

"Well," Yumi started in. "You are showing us who you really are, rather than keeping up with that front you show everyone else."

"Uh, yeah." Sissi said looking slightly uncomfortable. "I can't always help that."

"Besides, we will be able to return to our normal lives now." I said. "Even though someone won't be joining us."

"Normal..." Sissi said as though the word meant nothing. "There really isn't anything normal about the students in this school... besides-" but she stopped and turned to look in a different direction. "For better or for worse, some people won't allow it to simply go that way." She said, almost under her voice, and as though it were a matter of fact.

"As a poet once said, 'There are more things in heaven and earth...'" Yumi agreed.

"More than you can imagine." Sissi informed her.

"I doubt it."


	7. Mysterious Signs Revised Continued

Hello again, sorry it took me so long. I kept thinking that I had to do more and putting it off, if only I had checked... This is the latest chapter, and of course won't be the last. I hope you all enjoy, and, keep reading.

* * *

Jeremie and I were running to the infirmary. We had just gotten the news that Ulrich had been hit by a car. It was amazing how slow news traveled through the school; we should have known long before now. It wasn't even only that it took so long for anyone to tell us; we didn't even get all of the information. We didn't know if he was still alive or not, or how it had happened.

As we ran through the hall we passed by Jim, he yelled at us, "No running in the halls!"

"Ulrich was hit by a car!" Jeremie yelled back.

For a moment a look crossed Jim's face that that reminded me of the Jim who had helped us those two days with Lyoko. But the look passed as quickly as it came, and Jim came running up behind us.

"What happened?"

"We don't know." I said. "All we heard was that he was hit by a car, and that was from two people who happened to be passing us."

"They were also talking about it like it was something _normal_. Like people got hit every day..." Jeremie added.

"What?" Jim stopped running. "How is that possible? I mean, I heard the crash, yet... I didn't think anything of it. It _was_ like it happened often."

"Something is going on here." Jeremie whispered to me. "The only way it could seem normal, and even this isn't really true, is if suddenly everyone remembered all of the X.A.N.A. attacks that had ever happened."

"Oh, great... so where is the mass panic?"

"No, seriously O-" but he was cut off when he suddenly bounced back off of nothing but air.

"Jeremie?"

"What's the matter, did you slip?" Jim asked looking at Jeremie.

"No, I ran into something."

"Sorry about that." A woman's voice said.

I looked up from Jeremie and say a tall, beautiful woman standing in a blue dress directly where Jeremie had ran into something. She was bending over offering her hand to Jeremie, her long hazel brown hair dripping over her shoulder. Her face was a kind, earnest one, but I could see wisdom beyond understanding in her eyes. Her eyes were haunting, so deep and full of understanding, kindness, and love... I felt as though I couldn't look away.

"Ma'am, are you lost?" Jim asked.

"No," she responded. "I don't believe so."

She looked up at Jim and smiled. "I should thank you for taking care of these kids." she said. "Oh, but..." she waved her hand slightly and I swear I saw a flash of light for a second.

Jeremie took her hand and she began helping him up, but when he was part way up and their faces neared, she looked deep in his eyes and slowly a smile crept across her face. She leaned in closer and whispered, "Normally it would take three years, but for you we are trying to make an exception." The woman finished helping Jeremie up and she released his hand. Once they were apart Jeremie gaped at her his mouth wide.

"Who are you?"

"A friend." She said.

"So when we find Jeremie and Odd... What is that?" I heard Yumi's voice from down the hall and turned to look at them.

"Do you sense something, Yumi?" I heard Ulrich's voice.

"Yes, and it feels very familiar." She replied. "And the last time wasn't the best time either. Come on!"

Now I heard running footsteps coming closer and suddenly the others burst from around a corner. They stopped, panting slightly; Yumi looking at the woman who had suddenly appeared. I turned to see what the woman was doing but she wasn't there any more. Confused I looked around the hall but she was nowhere to be seen.

"I know she was here. I could feel her..." Yumi said.

"Who?" Jeremie asked.

"Someone that I felt earlier," Yumi told him. "Oh, it doesn't matter, but I really wanted to know..."

"I'm sure we will meet her again." I said lazily. "Sooner rather than later."

"Yeah, I bet you are right..." Ulrich said, almost as though he were falling asleep.

"What's the matter with you two?" Jeremie asked.

Yumi looked at Ulrich and Jeremie looked at me. Their expressions were worried and baffled. I didn't really know what I looked like but Ulrich had a sleepy look on his face and his eyes were glazing over. Perhaps his wound was getting to him...

"Yumi?" Jeremie asked a worried note in his voice.

"I know." She said and began moving her hand towards Ulrich's head.

As her hand neared Ulrich he suddenly collapsed and Yumi fumbled to catch him. She grabbed him by the arm, the one that wasn't hurt, and gently lowered Ulrich to the ground. Then, once he was lying comfortably, so comfortable, on the ground she placed her fingers against his forehead. I felt a wave of nausea flood through my head and began falling over, but Jeremie caught me and placed me on the floor. As my eyes closed I noticed that Jim was no longer in the hallway, but Sissi was walking towards us, her expression as worried as Yumi's or Jeremie's.

I was watching Odd as he lay on the floor. He had suddenly begun to fall over and I had had to jump to catch him from hitting hard on the ground. He was now lying unconscious on the floor, breathing deeply. Yumi was trying to find out what was wrong with Ulrich by entering his mind and seeing what she could find. It was a trick that she had learned a while ago, but she didn't use it very much. The need just didn't come up.

"I simply don't understand." Yumi said.

"What?" I asked checking Odd's heart beat.

"Well, nothing seems to be wrong, except that he has somehow been put into a state of unconsciousness. That, and there seems to be one phrase being repeated in his mind."

"What? A phrase? What do you mean?"

"'Live a normal life. Live happily, with your friends. Leave behind what you were fighting for.' And it just keeps repeating itself. I have tried to find where it is coming from but I can't."

"Maybe..." I started, thinking of the things that had been happening in the past week or so. "Maybe we are meant to live like normal teenagers..."

"It would seem so." Yumi agreed. "At least as normal as we can, since we all have some kind of 'power' or 'ability'."

It made sense, I guess. Since X.A.N.A. was now off and he couldn't bother us any more. It would make sense to try and live life like everyone else in Kadic. Yet, there was still something missing... Aelita. I had failed to save her... she had vanished into nothing before my eyes. I would never be able to live life happily without her.

My body shuddered as a sob came through me. I couldn't live without Aelita. I had to see if there was a way to save her somehow. I may have seen her disappear but that didn't mean that she couldn't be brought back... somehow. And, then the words of that woman came back to me, 'Normally it would take three years, but for you we are trying to make an exception.' What did that mean, what normally took three years? And how were they making an exception for me?

These were things I would have to find the answer to, but for now I would have to bring myself back to reality. There were people who needed me and they were lying on the floor on the way to the infirmary.

"Now all we need to do is wake them up." I said.

"I can help with that." Sissi said, and I noticed her for the first time.

Startled I jumped back. I hadn't heard her walking in and up until she had spoken I was making sure that Odd and Ulrich were still alive. Now I saw her and saw the worried expression on her face. Before, when she had spoken to us during lunch I had been enraged, but then I was still getting over what had happened. Not only that but she had also been a different person to me then. I couldn't quite place it but something about her had completely changed, and she was no longer the annoying, obnoxious, spoiled brat that I had always thought of her.

"How can you help?" I asked.

"Well, as the four of you know, every student in this school has some kind of, um, ability." She said. "I have a healing effect, but it only works at certain times."

"When is that?" I wondered.

"Times like this, when I am who I am now." she replied. "Who you knew was supposed to simply be an act, but it went a little too far and I couldn't control it..."

"Now, we decided that I should help her with that little problem." Yumi said still focusing on Ulrich. "I have already been helping her, and, well, you can see the difference."

"When did this happen?" I asked startled.

"Unofficially, after the first part of the last X.A.N.A. attack. That second 'day' before she talked with Ulrich I went to see what she had wanted to talk about. That was when I had discovered what was going on."

"But then Ulrich went to find me after class and the car accident happened. We talked after Ulrich was safely in the infirmary."

Sissi walked over and knelt next to me. She placed her hand, palm down, over Odd's forehead and began to focus. Slowly a light blue glow appeared beneath her hand and she slowly moved her hand around Odd's head. As her hand moved the color of Odd's skin darkened slightly as, as far as I could tell, the blood began rushing towards the skin. Sissi brought her hand down and placed it directly above his heart and snapped. Suddenly Odd jumped into alertness.

"What happened?" was the first thing that Odd asked. "Where am I?"

"You are on the way to the infirmary, to see what happened to Ulrich." Sissi told him. "Don't worry he is fine, the accident wasn't that bad, he simply broke his arm."

"Speaking of which," I said. "Can't you do something about that?"

"Maybe, but I think that it would be better to allow it to heal on its own." Sissi said. "I work better with things that were caused, rather than natural things."

"Oh."

Sissi walked over to Ulrich and did the same thing that she had done to Odd. Ulrich woke up just as quickly and asked the same question. This time Yumi answered and she told him something similar. They didn't mention the strange woman that we had seen in the hall, or anything like that. I was a little surprised at first but then I realized that their might be reason to what they were doing. Perhaps if the traveler and who ever this woman was didn't want the others to know about them then maybe Yumi and Sissi were purposely not mentioning them. But if that were true then that would mean that they knew of the two mysterious people. I would have to be sure to ask as soon as I could; maybe that would help me understand what was going on.

It had been a few hours since Ulrich and Odd had been affected and put to sleep. After Sissi had woken them up Jeremie had gotten very quiet and thoughtful. I knew that he wanted to ask something and kept expecting him to, but he just kept waiting for something. I wasn't entirely sure what it was but I was sure that it had to do with the entity that I had sensed while walking with Ulrich and Sissi.

I was sure that I had sensed her presence again. I recognized it almost instantly and it was just as powerful, if not more. Of course I had wanted to see her, she had been there when Aelita died, and I had felt strong remorse from her and the other. I also wanted to know who she was, being a powerful person as she was she must have known much more than I did about various abilities...

Anyway, I was at home after having taken a shower, and I was getting ready to do some homework. My cell phone was with my school things near my bed when it rang. I moved over and picked it up to see who it was, and of course the phone said that Jeremie was calling me. This was what I had been expecting, and he had finally called.

"Yumi, something has been bugging me since school." Jeremie started out. "You seemed to know that there was a person in the hall with us. I know about your powers, we all do, but still, something seems, different... off, somehow."

"Yes, I did sense her presence in the hall. As you know I have both telepathic and telekinetic abilities. I sensed her presence in the hall and recognized it; that was why I came running around the corner."

"Wait, you said that you recognized her." Jeremie asked confused and a little startled.

"Yes, I have felt her presence before." I replied.

"When?"

"Are you sure you want to know?"

There was a long pause, and when he finally spoke I could not only hear the quiver but feel it as well. "She was there when Aelita..."

"Almost, she appeared after. Somehow I feel as though things would have been different if she had been there before."

There was another pause, shorter this time. "Yumi, she told me something. She said that something normally takes three years, but that 'they' were making an exception for me."

This was startling. I had noticed something about the woman's presence but I hadn't quite known what it was, and though I still wasn't sure this could explain what I felt. Beyond the remorse there had been a sensation of searching, self assurance, and a bit of desperation. Perhaps it was possible for someone to be brought back from the dead after all. If so than maybe that was what this woman had come here for.

"Jeremie, I am sure that everything will be alright. For now I believe that we should try to live our lives as well and happily as we can." I told him. "I sense something big coming in the future, something that will affect all of us, something that will change the entire world." I paused for a few seconds. "And I am sure that we will see Aelita again. Now, you should go to sleep."

We hung up and I looked at the clock. It was getting very late, I was in the habit of doing my work late due to X.A.N.A. but now that he was no longer a threat I didn't have to worry about it. I decided to go to bed as well.

---

The school days passed by and the weekend came. I headed off to school's dormitory to meet with the others. We were going to head to the factory today and make sure that we didn't leave anything there. I wasn't sure how Jeremie would take this, since it would probably remind him about Aelita. We would all be a little affected, after all Lyoko had been the center of our lives for the past year. Yet even though we had been through so much we had all agreed to live a somewhat normal life now that Lyoko was shut down. There was little possibility that we would be able to go back after what happened, and it wasn't like there was any reason that we would want to... Now all we had left to do was find anything that we might have left in the factory and remove it. There was no chance that we wanted anyone finding out that we had been there and looking for us. That would create too many uncomfortable questions, and none of us wanted to answer them.

I found the others waiting for me in the courtyard; they were, of course, sitting on our favorite bench. I waved and ran to them, throwing my breath, and catching it as I got there. They greeted me and we set off for the factory. This time we had decided to take the main road; we had already taken our skateboards from beneath the school grounds. Besides, it was a weekend and if we were questioned we could simply say that we were taking a walk...

"So, Odd, did you ever get your skateboard new wheels?" I asked bringing up conversation and breaking the silence.

"What?" he wondered for a moment, then remembered what an event back on the ghost channel. "Oh, yeah, no, he never returned my call, can't imagine why..."

We all laughed. Good. This was something that we all needed, to laugh and be happy again. It had been a tough week for all of us. I had been half expecting some demolition equipment to suddenly drive themselves to my house one night and tear the place down. I know that Ulrich had been worried about any special liquids that were lying around... and Odd had been looking suspiciously at all of his CD players. Needless to say we weren't yet ready to accept that it was finally over, but the worst of us all was Jeremie. I could tell that he was in denial, and it didn't take a telepath to see it either. He didn't mention Aelita or Lyoko at all when around us, and yet he didn't seem nearly as hurt as he had the first few days...

We rounded a corner and saw a construction sign, and walked past it barely giving it a second thought. Construction was common in this part of town; it was the industrial part of Paris after all. Though, I never did understand why they had a school so close to the factories...

"Oh, god." Ulrich moaned.

I looked around to see what he was talking about and nearly swore myself. We had been walking not a block from the factory when we had passed the construction sign, and yet we had given it no thought. Now we realized what it meant... the factory had been bought, and was being rebuilt. The entire top part of the factory was gone and I couldn't see anything of the bottom to tell if they had somehow missed the three other rooms.

"G's Artificial Systems and Nanotech." Jeremie read. "Well, it would appear that the factory has been bought."

"I guess Lyoko was shut down just in time then, huh?" Odd asked.

This time no one laughed.

I simply couldn't believe that the factory had been bought, and that it had been destroyed. The factory was gone and now all Yumi, Odd, Jeremie and I could do was gawk in bitter astonishment and fear. What had they seen, had they found X.A.N.A. and Lyoko, had they turned the supercomputer back on, had they destroyed the entire place without even looking in it, or worse, had they found some hint that we had been there... We were in a dangerous position now, almost more so than we had ever been with X.A.N.A. If the construction team had found some hint of what had been going on there, or even that children had once been in it on a regular basis, then no matter what they thought they might come looking for us.

I wasn't exactly sure what they would do when they found us, but I guessed that would all depend on what exactly they found. If they had found Xanadu, the supercomputer, and not turned it on, and had found hints that we were there, then they might come and ask us about it. On the other hand they could have found Jeremie's notes and figured out what they had found... that could be worse than any other possibility. The name sounded English, and the sign had a sense of America about it, without stating it right off... but no matter who it was if they decided that Xanadu could be used as a weapon, well the world would be in some serious trouble.

"I want to see my father." I heard a boy's voice say from somewhere near by.

I shook myself out of my daze and looked around. There was a boy, about Yumi's height, and probably Odd's age, standing at the gate of the construction sight. He had short raven black hair and he was wearing a green sweatshirt and red sweat pants, which meant that he was probably color blind or he had no fashion sense... He had spoken in English, and it had been American English so I assumed that he must be American. I wasn't very good at telling a person's character by their posture but at this moment the person that he reminded me the most of was Sissi, on a bad day.

"Ok, Tobias." The guard said and opened the gate.

Before walking into the construction sight Tobias turned around and looked at us. It felt as though he were looking at each of us directly, but he did it so quickly that she had disappeared into the construction sight as quickly as I blinked. As he disappeared out of sight I suddenly felt a deep rage. He had an air of arrogance that I had never seen before; it was as if he literally owned all of France... But like I said before, I am not a very good judge of character.

We headed back to the school; there was nothing left for us here. Who ever it was who had destroyed the factory wouldn't allow a group of children into it, or at least not ones that weren't related to who ever it was. If they had found anything about us they would come looking for us, and if it was necessary for us to do anything about it we could deal with it then. But until then we could rest and live life as we... well, as we had been told to, normally. And I guess that this was the end of our heroics, for now anyway.

---

When we arrived at the school we found most of the other students outside. It wasn't a surprise really, it was getting onto summer and it was nice outside. I suspected that some of them were still inside; unfortunately even at our school there were some kids who were really considered outcasts. It wasn't fair to them, but we had tried to do something about it. Anyway, without the constant threat of a X.A.N.A. attack we had to find something to do.

"Well?" Odd asked.

"Well what?" Yumi answered.

"What now?" I asked.

Yumi looked at Odd and then at me confused, then bewildered, and then finally her expression turned to sadness. "I don't know..."

"We could study..." Jeremie suggested.

We all looked at him and surprised and Odd snickered.

"What?" Jeremie asked.

"When have _you_ ever needed to study?" Odd asked. "Don't you mean that we could study and you could watch us?"

"Uh... well, I could help." He suggested.

"That might be nice." Yumi said. "I needed to bring my grades up."

Suddenly I heard my name being spoken somewhere near by. I listened in and heard the person say, "Yeah, he is over there."

I turned around and looked where I had heard the voice. One of the other students was pointing at me and a Woman of about thirty was walking towards us. She had long hair that was a mix of brown, blond and red, and she was wearing dark green, blue and light blue. She was wearing a business suit, and on it was a logo that I had seen on the sign on the outside of the factory. Something like an eye...

"What's the matter Ulrich?" Yumi said behind me.

"Hello," the woman said. "You four seem to be very popular among the other students."

Her voice had an accent to it. I wasn't quite able to tell what it was, but I knew that it was there and I felt as though I had heard it just a half hour ago. I thought about it for a second and then realized that she sounded as though English were her native language, yet she spoke French as well as any of us did.

"Who are you?" Yumi asked a hint of dislike in her voice.

"My name is Alyssa." She replied. "I am here on behalf of a company that will be opening up in this city fairly shortly. You see we found some things that I believe are yours."

The woman held up a photo and I felt a sudden wave of shock. It was a photo of the four of us, but Aelita was in it as well. I felt a sudden rush of dread run through me, where had she found that, who was she, and what did she know? It was possible that she had simply found the photo lying around, but that wasn't likely. It was also possible that she had found it at the factory, and that was more likely, but then the question was how? Did a relative work at the new construction sight?

"Um," Alyssa said addressing us. "My associate bought the factory that is on the little island in the river, you four know the one, I assume... It took him a long time, did you know that the factory was a landmark. Thought to be a national treasure by some people. Well, when he finally convinced the government that it wasn't, and that the papers stating that it was were fake, he bought the land and they started taking down the deserted factory. But before he did so he wanted to make sure that nothing of value was left inside and had the place thoroughly searched. When doing so the people doing the searching found a few things that were very strange. First they found evidence that the factory had been recently used, not for work but by people having been there. The second thing was that there was an elevator that was locked..." she paused looking at how this news affected us, but none of us said anything. "Well, when we finally removed the elevator and got a team down the empty shaft we found three rooms, after breaking through three blast doors. The top room seemed to contain a large computer terminal with a holographic sphere. The second room seemed to contain three tubes that we couldn't identify but that seemed to be large enough for a person to enter from a door on one side. The final room seemed to contain a supercomputer which had been turned off recently."

She paused again and took off the bag that she had been wearing around her shoulder. She then opened it and took out a number of things, one of which I recognized as the notes that Jeremie had taken on how Lyoko worked. Placing these things on the ground between us she showed us, I assumed, all that had been found in the factory.

"After reading that book they discovered what most of the things were for. Lyoko, X.A.N.A., all of it, yet when they reactivated the supercomputer nothing worked. They tried everything that they could think of to restart the computer and the electronics but it seemed that everything had been destroyed by some powerful virus. After that they declared the 'Lyoko' to be a lost cause and decided to destroy the entire thing. I was asked to give you these." She pointed to the objects on the ground. "And to thank you for what you did for your country and our world. We know what you lost and we are sorry, but there is... nothing... that can be done now." She put her backpack on. "I hope you can move on and live a happy life... even though you have lost so much." I suddenly realized that she was talking to Jeremie now. "But since nothing can be done for Lyoko, or any of it, well, you should all try and live... simply have a 'normal' life."

The woman began walking away, but suddenly turned around and said, "Oh, and my associates children will be joining this school soon. I hope you will welcome them." Then she left.

"Well, what do we do now?" I wondered.

"Be grateful that they didn't demand to know more, didn't take us away, didn't force us to show them how to use Lyoko, or anything else that they could have done..." Jeremie said. "Simply be grateful and live a '_normal_' life..."

I turned around and saw him quivering. Jeremie was quivering; tears running down his face. I could see and feel his pain, and I knew that he had been holding it all in ever since that day... I wanted to do something for him but there was nothing that I could do. If only there were a way to bring Aelita back.


	8. Mysterious Signs Revised Continued2

Hum, it appears that I might have lost a good portion of my audiance... I wonder if that has to do with killing Aelita... Na, that couldn't be it. She isn't really dead... is she? Would I really do something like that? maybe... But I wonder, if killing her lost me part of my audiance what would killing another be like... if she is really dead.

* * *

I ducked as a massive wave of plasma energy flew directly over my head. Quickly I created my counter attack, a small glowing green orb of energy, between my hands and shot it at my opponent. The man, wearing purely dark clothes, who looked very similar to myself, struck the orb with his right arm and it exploded into a massive wave directed at him. My opponent was thrown back and I quickly followed in pursuit thrusting myself through the air above a barren planet using my energy alone. I extended the fingers on my right hand which began to grow longer and into claws and I slashed at the man who I hated with everything in me. He grabbed my arm and pushed me back thrusting his own into my stomach; I felt a sharp pain as his claws dug into me and I could feel the blood drain out of the wound. I picked up the remote and changed the channel.

"Hey," Odd objected. "I was watching that."

"Traveler Adventures?" I questioned. "Seriously, Odd, that show is at least twenty years old. Besides it is completely unrealistic. Like anyone could control plasma and energy waves like that. It's pure science fiction."

"Oh, come on, Jeremie, it isn't that bad." Ulrich argued. "I mean some of the plot is plausible."

"Besides, not more than a month ago we lived a science fiction adventure." Yumi said.

We were all over at Yumi's house; her parents were away. She had, of course, asked if we could be over before she invited us, and her parents had agreed if we kept the house clean and stayed out of trouble. I was beginning to wonder what Yumi's parents thought of us, it wasn't like we trashed buildings... well, not since Lyoko was shut down. Anyway, we had gone over to Yumi's house to study and that was what we had begun doing, until Odd remembered that a television show that he liked to watch was on... and that was three hours ago. Needless to say I was the only one left studying while the others watched what ever was on.

"I know, but that was then, and this is now." I said. "Need I remind you that exams are coming up? Are any of you ready?"

"I don't know why you are becoming so rude." Ulrich said. "What have we done to you?"

I glared at him. How dare _he_ ask me that; he of all people? Almost since the day that Lyoko died Yumi and Ulrich had been becoming more boyfriend and girlfriend. I didn't know if they realized that they were shoving it in my face and I didn't care. If they couldn't have the decency of not flirting around me then I couldn't be around them. I mean, how could they be that inconsiderate? They both knew what I had gone through, and yet they still...

I got up and walked towards the door. I needed to get out of here before things got worse; I really needed to calm down. It seemed that ever since Aelita died I had been on the brink of an emotional melt down. I had done what I could to prevent myself from going overboard but the others weren't helping. Ulrich and Yumi, as I have said, were flirting more now than I remember them ever doing before. Sam had, ironically, transferred to our school and she and odd hung out almost as much as Yumi and Ulrich. Sissi, though she still had her eyes on Ulrich, was considering other boys. It seemed that everyone else in our group had someone to be with.

I sighed and began heading back to the school, a nice nap would probably help me cool down. And if not I could always continue working on my new computer program. I had begun making computer programs for things that I thought could be useful, as a way to pass the time. Besides, we had seen how good I was at it when I worked on the programs for Lyoko. Anyway, anything was better than sitting around a constant reminder of my tragedy.

_Jeremy!_

I jumped. Quickly I looked around to see who had said my name but the streets were completely deserted, typical of this part of Paris at this time of day... It had to have been the wind; the wind playing tricks on my ears. No one was here to call my name, so it was my imagination.

_Jeremie!_

I jumped again and looked around, but there still wasn't anyone here. This was getting creepy; my mind was playing tricks on me. It had to be that because the voice sounded like...

_Jeremie, look at me!_

"Aelita?" I asked, my voice quivering. "Where are you?"

_Over here!_

I turned to see where the voice had come from, and of course there was nothing there.

_Jeremie, come here!_

"Where are you?"

_Come here!_

"Where?"

_Walk forward!_

Unconsciously I took a step forward. I could feel that I was loosing control of myself somehow, though I wasn't sure that I cared. If I could see Aelita one last time... it would mean the world to me.

"Jeremie?"

_Come Here!_

Now my body was walking fully on its own. I couldn't have stopped myself if I had wanted to, and I didn't want to. Now all I could do was waiting and watch to see where I led myself. Hopefully I would see Aelita in the end...

---

"Sissi, what's the matter?" Sam asked me.

We were heading to Yumi's house. We had been invited with the others but for various reasons we had not been able to come when the others had. Now we were free to do as we pleased, and were late. Both Sam and I knew where Yumi lived so it wasn't like we were going to get lost. Anyway, while we were turning a street on the last stretch before we reached Yumi's house I had seen Jeremie walking away. Not only that but I had heard him talking to someone. When I went back to see what he was doing, and Sam had followed shortly after, what I saw was almost frightening. Jeremie looked dazed and around him there was a faint pink light. I had called out to him but he didn't seem to hear me.

"Sam you get the others."

"What? Why?" she asked.

"I think something is wrong with Jeremie." I told her. "I'm going to follow him."

"Yeah, but why do I have to go and get them, why can't you call them with your cell phone?"

"Good point." I said. "But it would be easer to track him if there were only one of us. Besides, don't you want to see your boyfriend?"

She looked at me, her jaw hanging. Slowly a blush crept across her face and she turned to look away. "Oh, ok." She replied and headed off to Yumi's house.

I turned back to Jeremie, or rather where he had been last time I saw him. I quickly began running; looking for him. He couldn't have gone far and I would be able to follow his voice. It shouldn't be that hard...

I turned a corner and saw him turning onto another road. Slowly I quickened my pace and tried to remain quiet. I didn't think that Jeremie would notice me, but I didn't want anyone else to know that I was tracking him. There would be too many questions asked that I wouldn't want to answer. Besides if I was stopped I would probably loose him. The only problem with that, though, was that there were no people around... and that wasn't normal. Sure around this time of day there were few people around this part of Paris but it wouldn't be deserted.

I could just barely hear Jeremie now, but he seemed to just be rambling. I couldn't make any sense about what he was saying, though it sounded mostly like he was talking to someone. As I followed him I suddenly realized that he wasn't just walking randomly. He was heading to the place where the factory use to be. I had been there personally about two times, but the others had told me about it a number of times. I knew what had gone on there, and I also knew that it was being rebuilt as something else. The construction wasn't finished either, and it would be very dangerous for Jeremie to enter the construction sight.

I took out my cell phone and called Ulrich. The others probably wouldn't know where we were and I knew that they would have to if they were to help.

---

I reached for the remote. I couldn't believe Jeremie, what a jerk. We had been watching that show and he had acted like we were insulting him personally. I simply couldn't believe him, what had we done to him? I aimed the remote and changed the channel.

"Odd, turn it back!" Ulrich yelled.

"What? Ok." I changed it back and looked to see what he had been watching.

A television show had just begun and it was going through the opening credits, but something seemed strange about it. Suddenly I saw a video of myself and then of my form in Lyoko and my jaw dropped. As the credits finished it showed the X.A.N.A. symbol and the five of us, including Aelita, with the words 'Code: Lyoko' above us.

"What the..." I began.

"They made a television show about us?" Yumi suggested.

"Ghost Channel?" Ulrich read the title of the episode.

"Wait, wouldn't that be the time when we were trapped in Lyoko in a virtual earth?" Yumi asked.

"Look at us." I said. "Do we really fight that good?"

"Uh, well..." Ulrich started.

Suddenly the me on the television got hit form behind by a block. I blushed because I had just been showing off and getting hit was, well, what I deserved...

"Odd, you have lost too many life points." The Jeremie said. "Odd, what are you doing?"

What I was doing was running at the block, which now didn't seem like such a good idea. But I hit it and it disappeared.

"Hey, Jeremie, next time enjoy the show and let the real heroes get the job done." The me on television said.

"Ok this is getting to wearied." I said.

"Yeah, those people look exactly like us." Yumi said. "I don't remember any one video taping us."

"Could it be that Lyoko recorded what we did?" Ulrich suggested.

"But then why would we see Jeremie?"

"Good point." Ulrich agreed. "We should record this."

Yumi got a video tape and inserted it into a VCR. She hit the record button and suddenly Sam burst through the door.

"We think something might be wrong with Jeremie." Sam told us. "Come on, we have to go and catch up with Sissi."

We all jumped up and stared at Sam shocked. This was sudden, and Jeremie had been fine-well, ok, when he had left. What could have happened since then and now?

"What is wrong with him?" Ulrich asked.

"I don't know, and I don't think Sissi does either. Come on we have to hurry."

"It's a good thing you are recording that show, isn't it?" I said, and laughed to myself.

---

Aelita, I could hear Aelita's voice. I was following the sound of her voice. The buildings around me, the people, the cars, they were nothing, I did not see them... I was following Aelita's voice. That was all I knew; all I cared about. I _had_ to find Aelita; had to. I knew she would just be around the next corner, but, no, it must be the next.

_Jeremie, come here! Help me!_

"Aelita where are you?" I called out to her.

_Jeremie, please, save me!_

"Where are you?"

_Jeremie, I can't hold on... HELP!_

I couldn't stop. She needed me. I didn't know what was happening but she needed me. I had to help her, she was still alive and I wouldn't allow anything to change that.

_Jeremie, it hurts!_

There, just between those two buildings, a light. I could literally feel her presence. Must, through that gap between the buildings. There, over that bridge, in that, Aelita. Aelita! "Aelita!"

I ran forward, jumping over or dodging around anything in my way. I could see her, she was bent over and twisted with fear and pain. I could almost reach her, almost. Suddenly I was ripped back, my body fell to the ground and I could feel something pulling me. NO, I mustn't allow this to happen. I had to get to her. I had to help her. I had to.

"Jeremie! Snap out of it!" Wind, wind was all it was. "Jeremie!"

I thrashed my arms and legs about trying to get away. Suddenly I was free-yes-I ran forward towards Aelita, but again I was knocked to the ground and dragged back. Both my hands were gripped tightly and I couldn't wrench them free so I used my legs kicking wildly trying to hit whatever was holding me from Aelita.

_Jeremie... help..._

"Aelita!"

---

We were running, running to the factory as fast as we could. Ulrich and Odd were close behind us. I simply couldn't believe it. Sure Jeremie had been angry when he had left, but crazy? Sissi had called just moments ago and explained to Sam what was going on. Sam told us that Jeremie was calling out 'Aelita' and running around madly. She had also told us that he was probably heading towards the factory. We had to get there before he could do himself any real harm. The factory was, of course, now a construction sight for that major new American company, but it wasn't nearly done yet. Who knows what things could happen to Jeremie there.

Now we were on the final stretch, the ex-factory was just around the next set of buildings. We could hear Jeremie's screaming, his mournful, frantic ratings. What could be happening to him, what could be making him suffer like this? It was almost worse than when she had died.

"Aelita! No! Aelita!"

"Oh, thank god, you are here! Help me with him!" Sissi yelled over Jeremie's screams.

We rushed forward and grabbed hold of anything that we could get a grip on. Jeremie continued to struggle against us, almost as though he didn't even see us. Odd and Ulrich were trying to get his legs under control, while I was keeping his torso on the ground and Sissi was holding on to his arms trying to allow Sam to help her. Meanwhile Jeremie was thrashing, hitting and kicking any of us that let go for a second.

"Aelita! No! Let me go! I have to help her!" Jeremie screamed. "They are hurting her!"

I looked over into the construction sight. There was a faint pink glow floating not ten feet away but it was so dim that I was sure that it was simply my imagination or a reflection. Yet, something seemed seriously wrong. First of all there were no people around, none what so ever. Next was the fact that the construction sight was open but seemed to be abandoned. And then there was the fact that Jeremie was going insane. But above all that I had the strangest feeling that there were three others here with us.

"Damn! Can't we get him to calm down at all?" Ulrich asked. "I have already been kicked in the stomach more than I like, and I think my nose and lip are bleeding."

"At least there aren't any people around." Odd commented. "This would look pretty awkward."

"Yeah, but if there were people around then we would be getting some help." I said.

"Aelita!" Jeremie yelled.

Suddenly I felt myself being pushed back. I found it extremely difficult to keep hold of Jeremie at all; my arms and hands just couldn't get to him. Then, with little warning, we all flew into the air and away from Jeremie. I landed hard on the concrete and heard the others land hard as well. As quickly as I could I jumped up and ran to stop Jeremie from continuing into the construction sight. Sissi was about as close to him as I was and we both reached him at the same time. We jumped at him but as soon as our hands touched him he suddenly collapsed onto the ground.

"Oh my god, Jeremie!" I yelled.

"What happened to him?" Ulrich asked as he ran to us.

"He just collapsed." Sissi said. "I don't know what it was, he just..." she checked his pulse. "Oh, no! We have to get him to a hospital now! I can't feel a pulse!"


	9. Mysterious Signs Revised Continued3

Hello all, here is the next installment of Desires. It should explain a lot, and set some things to rest. If you ever were considering not reading any more because I killed a character, I believe that this will encourage you to read again.  
Oh, and here is your chance to really affect the story. I need a good description of this story to use as the blurb that everyone will read when looking at the story's title. If you e-mail me one that will fit I just might use it, though depending on how many I get, if there is only one, then yeah... Uh, anyway please send me what you would like to see as the story description. Thanks.

* * *

We were carrying Jeremie to the nearest hospital, or, more specifically Ulrich and I were carrying him. Sissi, Sam, and Yumi were either looking for someone that might be able to give us help or checking on Jeremie. He was alive, we knew that now. Sissi had not felt a pulse because it was very weak, but he was alive. Still, though, we didn't know why he had collapsed. That was the first reason we had decided to take him to a hospital, the second was because of how Jeremie had been acting. There was no denying it, he was having some kind of mental break down, and after what had happened to Aelita I really couldn't blame him.

"Anyone?" Yumi asked Sam as she walked back to us.

Sam shook her head. "There isn't even a single sign of any people. It's literally like they all vanished."

"Oh, sure, live a normal life, they said." Ulrich muttered to himself. "But how can we? When all these things keep happening to us how can we live a _normal_ life?"

"Come on Ulrich, if we lived a _normal_ life there would be no story, and thus no television show." I said. "We have to give the people what they want, action, adventure, drama..."

"Shut up Odd." Ulrich muttered. "Unless you want to switch, since you have the legs and I have the rest of the body."

"If you were getting tired you should have said something." I replied. "We can switch."

We stopped and put Jeremie's body on the ground; then Ulrich and I switched positions and I took Jeremie's torso. We picked him up again and started walking again. Now I understood what Ulrich had been complaining about, Jeremie may not look it, but he was very heavy. I was surprised that Ulrich had been able to carry him as far as he had.

"Hey, guys," Sissi called to us from further down the street. "Look what I found!"

Sissi came flying down the street on one end of a stretcher elevated on wheels. It looked like the kind that were in hospitals and ambulances, and I could only imagine where she had found it. But this was a good thing, now we wouldn't have to carry Jeremie so much as push him. It would be a lot easier that way.

"Where did you find that?" Ulrich asked.

"Over with an ambulance." Sissi said. "Don't worry it was abandoned. It really seems as though the entire city has been abandoned. There aren't any people anywhere, even in the any of the buildings."

"How far away is the ambulance?" Sam asked with a thoughtful look on her face.

"Why, it isn't like any of us can drive..." I said. "Unless you want me to give it a try."

"That isn't entirely true." Sam replied. "I can."

"What?" we all asked at the same time.

"But you aren't eighteen." Ulrich reminded her.

"I know."

"And we can't drive until we _are_ eighteen."

"I know."

"Besides, you haven't taken a class to learn how to drive."

"Really?"

"Not in school."

"Does it matter?"

"Ulrich you aren't going to win on this one." I said. "Believe me. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, it isn't like there are any people around to get hit."

Ulrich decided to let it go and after we put Jeremie on the stretcher we made our way to the ambulance that Sissi had found. It wasn't really that far, and when we looked for the keys we found them already in the ignition. Sam got into the drivers seat and started the ambulance. The rest of us got in back, except for Yumi, who got into the passengers seat. After everyone was seated we started moving, and Sissi got up and started looking at the equipment. She had recently told us that she wanted to be a nurse, or a doctor, I wasn't entirely sure. I guess she was taking a look at what equipment the ambulance had to see what she might some day be working with. After a few moments she checked Jeremie's pulse again and then turned on a machine and connected part of it to one of his fingers. A little green light appeared and showed Jeremie's heart rate. A few minutes later we were at the hospital and we brought Jeremie inside.

---

The city was empty, I could literally _feel_ it. All the noise that was normally in a city was gone, both the normal and the meta-normal. I couldn't hear the noise that normally went on in people's minds, the everyday noise from thoughts and simply being alive. It was... creepy; lonely. I hated this feeling. I was so use to the noise of living in a city that in this emptiness with only Ulrich, Odd, Sissi, Sam, and Jeremie creating any kind of thought noise I felt an oppressive silence pushing against me. I felt claustrophobic; I couldn't breathe...

"Yumi!" Ulrich started. "Are you ok?"

I snapped back to reality at the sound of my name. Taking a deep breath I turned to look at Ulrich and I nodded. I was ok, but something very wrong was going on. What could have caused all the people in Paris to have suddenly vanished? This couldn't possibly be a X.A.N.A. attack, so then what?

I followed Ulrich and the others as they brought Jeremie's body into the hospital. Suddenly as I crossed the threshold into the building I was hit by a wave of thought. It felt like every person in the city had suddenly reappeared, yet there still wasn't anyone around. The lobby was empty except for us. That meant that something else was causing this. I focused on the thoughts trying to separate them from one another, but every time I 'touched' a mind it suddenly disappeared. The first few times I was surprised but after that I simply continued doing what I was doing until they were all gone. After a while, and as we turned a corner, I was left with only ten minds. I was now able to sense them far better than I had been able to before; I also knew that five of them were my friends. That meant that the other five were fake, yet something felt different about two of them. They seemed stronger and somehow familiar. Quickly I got rid of the remaining fakes and was left with the two. I slowly reached out my mind towards one of them but it retreated away. This really surprised me, no one had ever done that before, and it also meant that that mind was real. I began moving towards the second but just as I was about to reach it the first suddenly rushed into me. Our minds collided and I felt my body drop away...

When I awoke I found myself lying in thick dark woods. These woods also seemed familiar, and yet at the same time different than I would have remembered them. The trees were thick and old, and very little light reached through their branches. I couldn't see my surroundings very well but I could sense the presence of someone, or something. There seemed to be five of them, but only two were the same. The two that were the same seemed to be angry for some reason. They also seemed vastly different from the other three, more real somehow. The other three were three different kinds of creatures. One of them seemed old, not like an old person, exactly, but wise, and having lived a long time. I suddenly realized that the first two were also old like that. The fourth one seemed very young, but in the same sense that the other three seemed old. And the fifth I couldn't read or understand enough to describe at all.

I began to get up, I was after all lying on my back in a place that I didn't know with five unknown creatures watching me. As I moved I felt the creatures stir. They were moving, and not away. I froze and listened; since I couldn't really see anything my hearing had become more acute. I listened for any noise that might be threatening. If I had to I would fight, though other than the martial arts and the telekinesis that I could do I didn't really have any way of fending off anything.

"What should we do about the human child?" an airy, rustling voice asked. The voice sounded almost like wind through leaves of a tree and yet at the same time it sounded like a young girl. The other thing that I noticed was the words were not French yet I was still able to understand them.

"We should inform those whom need to know. They will be able to take care of her." another voice, this time it sounded more like a cat's cries than a voice but there was something distinctly human about the way the words were formed. And again the words were of another language but I was still able to understand what was said.

There was a moments pause and then as if in response to something said a series of screeches sounded from one of the creatures. This I knew I should not be able to understand; it didn't even sound human at all, yet I was still able to understand what was said, "No, we mustn't harm her. It is against the code that we all live by to harm a human. They would kill any of us if we broke that code."

"Then we will report this meeting. Someone will be here for her shortly after they are notified. That is how it always works, even though it is so rare." The first voice said. "You should go" I couldn't understand the name, "it would be fastest."

There was a rustling sound and a sudden flash of light, and for a brief second I was able to see the remaining creatures. There were two wolfs, but something was wrong with them, they were green, and deformed. There was a young girl who had leaves of some kind around her body and through her hair, and there was a short man who was wearing fur cloths that completely covered him. The only ones who looked very threatening to me were the two wolves.

"Um, hello?" I called out to them.

_She speaks._ A voice within my mind said. The voice was a voice that not only used sound but emotion and images as well. It was almost as though I myself were thinking the words.

"Who are you?" I asked.

_If you do not already know then you are not to. We can not tell you as there are only five whom are aloud to do so. That is the rules we all live by._

This was getting stranger and stranger by the second. As a telepathic person I had always been able to read minds. The thoughts and emotions that leaked out of people were like sounds, smells and images to me, but this was different. This was far more advanced than anything that I had ever felt before. This was...

Suddenly I felt as though I were being pulled from all around me. The woods became even darker and I was ripped off my feet. When I landed, softly, on the ground I felt as though I were sliding into place. I opened my eyes and saw that I was back in the hospital. The others were rounding a corner and I quickly ran to catch up with them. As I ran I tried to remember what had just happened but the harder I tried to remember the more easily the memory seemed to slip away.

---

We wheeled Jeremie into an open room in a hall that I knew. I checked his pulse again and noticed that it was stronger. It seemed that he was recovering quickly. This was good, it meant that he would wake up soon, not that that would help with our current situation. I knew that when Jeremie woke up we would have to explain to him what had happened, and if possible we should ask him if he remembered anything. Then we would have to find out what happened and a way to deal with it.

I turned to look at the others. They were sitting in various places around the room. Odd was with Sam, Ulrich was with Yumi, and of course I hadn't moved from my spot next to Jeremie. If you didn't know better you might think that we were like the others, but that wasn't the way it was. Jeremie loved someone else, and so did I. I had had a crush on Ulrich for a long time but that had ended fairly quickly. The reason I had still acted like it was real was because of how they had treated me. Shortly after I met him and the crush grew he met Yumi and Jeremie. Because of the way I had acted he had never really liked me, at all. Yet I respected and liked him, and I wanted to become part of his group. I had assumed that they were going to just be the three of them, but when they allowed Odd to join I felt as though I had actually been insulted. Still I tried to accept it, because I knew how I acted towards everyone. It was only when they started harassing me that I _felt_ justified in how I was towards them.

Of course that all changed when I realized what was really going on. After the dreams that were actually memories of days that didn't happen for everyone else, the dreams caused by Lyoko, I decided to pursue the group again. But even though I had begun to change they didn't see it that way, and they continued to shun me. That was back when they first discovered Lyoko. I had never been sure if I were right or not, if the dreams were actually happening or if it were just my imagination, but when I finally decided to follow them to the factory I got my answers. Lyoko was real, and they were actually having to deal with threats on a regular basis. Finally, within the past month, I was able to escape Nicolas and Herb long enough to ask Ulrich if I could talk to him. Then, this long adventure began...

Suddenly I jumped as Jeremie began to move. I looked down at him and checked his pulse, it seemed to be back to normal. He was moving more and more and I realized that he was, in fact, waking up. Good, this would make some things easier. Now if only he would open his eyes and speak...

"Uh, where am I?" Jeremie asked looking around.

"Jeremie, you're awake!" Ulrich said.

Everyone walked over, to look at Jeremie. They smiled and cheered, and Jeremie received a number of hugs. When they were done being relieved that he was still alive we got down to business.

"What happened?" Jeremie asked.

"You started to become wild, you couldn't see or hear anything that was real." I told him. "They only things that you could see or hear were an illusion. You believed that Aelita was calling to you."

"I'm not so sure it was simply an illusion." Yumi objected. "While we were at the construction sight I thought I saw something where Jeremie had been trying to go. It was faint, and I almost couldn't see it but I am sure it was there. It also disappeared when Jeremie lost consciousness."

"I remember that..." Jeremie said. "I remember Aelita calling to me, and following her voice. Then when I reached the construction sight I saw her. She looked like she was in pain, bent over and writhing. I am not sure why, all she said was that she needed my help, was in pain, and that 'they' were hurting her."

"Did she say who 'they' were?" Ulrich asked glancing over at Yumi.

"No. She just said 'they'." Jeremie told him.

"There is something else you need to know, Jeremie." Yumi said. "The city is completely empty of people."

---

Deep in the universe of Aricitopia, on the planet of Aricitopia, obviously the home for the Aricitics, the traveler sat in a room in the capital city. He was watching out a window that covered an entire wall, though it was more like part of the room had been ripped away than a window. He sat on one of three chairs that were stationed in the center of the room. There were three other creatures stationed in the room with him but they were all behind him. One of the three was the dryad that Jeremie had met, another was an Aricitic, and the third was a human. They were all patently watching the traveler, or the window.

"He will be alright won't he?" the dryad asked.

"Shyofu, I believe he will be, but please, his powers have somehow activated. I don't know if he will be able to get them back home..."

"Oh, so you already know." A female voice said from a door in the wall opposite the window. "What should we do then?"

"Hello Ginda." The traveler said without turning around, or even moving for that matter.

"I just arrived to tell you what was happening." She replied. "So what are we going to do?"

"Perhaps it is time we interfered."

"Oh, are you able to enter their universe yet, then?"

"No, but you and Gwydevis are." He replied. "Here is what I want you to do..."

---

I was exploring the hospital alone. It wasn't like anyone was around to stop me really, and the others were discussing there business with Jeremie. Earlier to day when they invited me, and even when Sissi and I were walking to Yumi's house, I had never expected to get caught up in something like this. The city was empty; there were no people other than us. I couldn't explain it, and I doubted that any of the others could. I knew one thing for sure; this was not what they called a X.A.N.A. attack. They had told me everything about Lyoko, and somehow I remembered everything as they told me it. I believed that it had something to do with Sissi but I wasn't entirely sure about that. Anyway after they told me about it, a week or so ago, I was transferred to their school. It was strange because I didn't see any reason for them to do that. I had been in a public school and I was being sent to a private school, I simply couldn't understand it, until I met more of the students at the school.

It seemed that Kaidac was a school for 'gifted' children, though no one actually knew it unless they figured it out themselves. I wasn't even entirely sure if the teachers and faculty knew about it. After thinking about it and what I had learned I came to a not to unreasonable conclusion that it had something to do with the original purpose of Lyoko, what ever it may be. From what I learned from the gang, when you entered Lyoko your natural abilities were enhanced. If that were true then why wouldn't who ever designed it want a group of innocent children to exploit? In any case it seemed likely that Lyoko and Kaidac had something to do with each other. I could see it in the buildings and on the grounds...

I turned around a corner and suddenly found myself face to face with a decent sized _green_ wolf. It was simply sitting in the middle of the hallway almost as if it were waiting for me. At first I was shocked but I soon got over it and realized that the wolf wasn't gong to attack me. Now, with a little more assurance of my personal safety I looked over the creature a little more carefully. It wasn't actually a wolf, I could tell that right off the bat. Other than the fact that it was green its ears were wrongly shaped. Instead of tipping up like a normal dog's or wolf's they bent more to the side and curved slightly. Its eyes were wrong as well, instead of the goldish color that many animals had they were green, and more human like. The mouth was also different because it was slightly longer and wider with longer sharper teeth... I was starting to get crept out again.

_Don't worry child. I won't harm you._ a voice said in my head. It was a voice, yes, yet there was much more than that to it. I literally felt reassurance in his words. I could see that he wouldn't hurt me. It was not only words but everything that my mind could produce in one statement.

"Who are you?" I asked.

_I am called Gwydevis._ He said. _I am surprised that you aren't afraid of me. Usually people are afraid of me. It is because I have an evil 'vibe' that seems to surround me._

"Oh, that doesn't bother me." I replied. "Don't worry about it. So, uh, what _are_ you?"

_Very direct aren't you? That's ok, I am in a form of an animal called an Aricitic. Don't worry about not knowing what I am, it is a species of another universe._

"You are from another universe?" I asked.

_Yes but that isn't the point, right now we need to get you to the others._

"Why?"

_I'll tell you when we get there, for now, give me a second while I change..._

"What?" I asked startled.

Suddenly he began to, well, change. His fur and flesh began to bend and move and his bones began to readjust. After the entire process was over he was a man of about thirty standing in front of me wearing a black and white cloak. He looked oddly familiar but I couldn't quite place it.

"Alright now lets get back to your friends." He said.

---

I'm not entirely sure why but I was still sitting on the hospital bed. My friends were all around me and we were discussing what we should do next. We were in a city with no people in it and that wasn't normal, so we had to figure out what happened and how to fix it. We had, of course, already determined that this was not a X.A.N.A. attack, it simply couldn't be seeing as how the entire factory was torn down. It couldn't be a post apocalyptic world because we were all above ground and there was no attack... Obviously we hadn't come up with anything it _could_ be yet.

"So, Jeremie, think you can walk yet?" Sissi asked.

"I don't know, I haven't tried." I responded.

I moved myself out of bed and stood up. I took a step forward and another... yep, I was able to walk alright. Now that that was settled...

"So, lets see if we can't find _anyone_." I said and started walking towards the door.

"Wait," Odd objected. "We need to wait for Sam."

"Oh, I don't think you need to worry much about her." a very familiar female voice said from the door. "She will be coming along any moment now."

I turned around to see who it was and was surprised to see the woman I had seen three times before. She was standing in the doorway behind me leaning against it. The cloths she was wearing were very similar to the travelers except these were in color, blues and greens to be exact. She appeared to be about twenty seven years old but I was absolutely sure that her true age was far greater than that. In her right hand was a long white staff that was made of a material that I couldn't identify. It had various gems and stones embedded at intervals in it and at the top there were two pairs of wings: one was light and appeared to have feathers and the second was darkish and appeared to be bat like. If I had to guess the feathered one was made out of white gold and the bat one was made out of dark silver. Hovering between the wings was a large crystal that was very simple; it looked kind of like two pyramids with the bases connected, or kind of like the thing that hovers above the Sims heads. There were also three smaller ones attached to sides on the bottom half of it.

"Who are you?" Odd asked.

"My name is Ginois, but I am commonly known as Ginda. I am part of the traveler..."

"Don't you mean a friend of the traveler's?" I asked.

"No, I meant what I said." she replied. "Anyway, I have come here because we have finally decided to interfere directly."

"Now, wait a minute, I thought your rules were that you wouldn't directly interfere." Yumi argued.

"I don't know how _she_ knows who you are, or about your limitations, but I have to agree. The traveler told me that you didn't interfere with the workings of a universe unless necessary."

"That's strange, I don't remember him saying that."

"Well he implied it anyway." I insisted. "So why have the rules changed."

She looked at me and laughed. "Isn't it obvious, young traveler, it's because the universe has changed."

"What?" we all asked at the same time.

"You see, when Jeremie left Yumi's house earlier today, he was feeling deeply depressed. He missed Aelita, as would be expected, but because he is fairly new to his powers, having played with them very rarely, he wasn't in control of them. His grief activated his abilities and created this universe in which no one really existed except for him and, well, Aelita. The problem was that since she is dead she couldn't be fully manifested by Jeremie. This led him to become mad, insane I mean, and the rest you know..."

"Wait, I created this universe?" I asked.

"And if no one but he and Aelita existed in this universe then why are we here?" Ulrich asked.

"Yes, Jeremie, you did create this universe. It isn't that big, just about the size of Paris, but that is still amazing for one of your skill level." Ginda told me. "And the rest of you are here as well is because of the bonds of friendship. You five realized, without knowing it, that Jeremie was in trouble, and were brought here as well."

"So what are we going to do now?" I asked.

"We are going to wait for about three minutes for Sam to return so that we can get you back to your universe."

I sat down in a chair and began thinking. This was very interesting. I had met the traveler a while ago in a dream, or rather in another universe while I was 'traveling'. Then I had met him again in his universe of Aricitopia when Lyoko began to act very strangely. The second time I swear he had said something about not interfering with what goes on in another universe, but maybe he didn't. In any case they were interfering right now, and I guess this time I was glad.

"Say, um..." I began.

"You are trying to bring back Aelita aren't you?" Yumi asked with an accusatory tone in her voice.

"Well, that was very direct." Ginda said. "If you must know... yes. We are doing all we can to bring her back to life. But please understand, resurrection is very difficult if we don't know where the soul is. We need to find the soul before we can give it a body again, and that is a very difficult process. Usually it takes us three years to do."

"Three years?" I asked, a whine creeping into my voice.

"I said it usually takes that long, though we aren't sure why... Anyway, it would be faster if we simply had a way to call the soul to us, but the only way to do that is something that a loved one can do."

"I'll do it." I jumped in. "I'll do it, what ever it is!"

"No, you won't. We aren't giving this as an option to you."

Suddenly I felt a blinding red rage build up in me. "What do you mean I can't do it? I-"

"Jeremie, you would die." Ginda told me. "And we aren't going to do that. Not if we can have both of you alive together."

"Um, what about what happened earlier, when Jeremie saw Aelita, I mean." Yumi asked.

"That would have worked, except this isn't your universe, and her soul, her being, was being ripped apart. She would have died as soon as she was given a body, and that time we probably wouldn't have been able to do anything to revive her."

"Sounds like there is a heated debate going on in here." A man said from the door behind where Ginda was standing.

"Looks like they are here." Ginda said.


	10. Absolution

Hey, does anyone read these things? I was being serious about what I said in the beginning of the last chapter. I am out of creativity, at least for the little blurb that tells what this story is about. Please, if you wanna give me a little help, my e-mail address is on my profile. So, us yeah, please do so... Thanks.  
Oh, by the way, this chapter is a clifhanger...

* * *

I didn't like the man standing in the doorway. I wasn't sure what it was but I felt something, evil, coming from him. It was like he was thinking of hundreds of horrible things to do. It creped me out and I tried to avoid his mind as much as I could, but I could still feel the darkness seeping off of him... I began to feel sick, and considered leaving the room.

"Yumi, are you ok?" Ulrich asked me.

"I," I paused for a moment. It would be rude for me to say that I thought the man was evil. He was obviously Ginda's associate, and that meant that he was here to help as well. "I'm just not feeling well."

I glanced over at the man and noticed that he was looking at me, a look of concern on his face. I was shocked to see that, and then instantly ashamed. He couldn't possibly be what I had thought. That was impossible. I sensed so much good from Ginda that it was impossible that she could ever work with someone as evil as I had thought the man was.

_Unfortunately you aren't correct._ a voice in my head told me.

"What? Who's there?" I asked in a whisper.

_I am what you have sensed me to be._ the voice told me.

"Who are you?"

_My name is Gwydevis. If you really wish to know I am one of five parts of the traveler's personalities. There use to be four before I was found but... I truly am what you sense._

"I don't believe it," I whispered. "How can you be so..."

_Evil?__ But I am not evil. What you are sensing are the most horrible, uncivil, and, of course, evil urges of humanity. They are all within me, all of them..._

"How can you live like that?" I asked.

_Because before they found me I lived doing the things that are within me.__ I never wanted to but there was something else controlling me. I had no choice. Because of that I have developed a capability to hold all of the urges and thoughts within me. I will _never_ do any of them._

"But to have all of those, all of that muck in you..."

"I see you two have met." Ginda said interrupting my conversation. "For the rest of you this is Gwydevis. He is here to help you get out of this universe and back into your own."

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a movement and turned to see what it was. When I looked it took me a moment to understand what I was looking at. It was Odd, raising his hand in the air, as though we were at school.

"Uh, yes, Odd." Ginda replied.

"I was just wondering, when we _are_ back in our universe, do you expect us to 'live a normal life' again or have you given up on that as well?" Odd asked, a bit of bitterness seeping through his voice.

"No, we never really expected you to be able to live much of a normal life." Ginda said and then sighed. "I believe some of you have seen the new television show 'Code Lyoko', or at least the first part of it... As you are either already aware, or are about to become aware of, your lives are a story. You live what someone else watches, or in this case reads. That, Jeremie, is why the traveler told you that there are multiple versions of Lyoko. There are, each and every story that is written with you as characters in it becomes a different universe, as long as it isn't compliant with what happens in the originals. This one is about number twenty three."

"You are kidding right?" Ulrich asked.

"I am afraid not." Ginda replied.

"So, um, why are we number twenty three?" Odd asked.

"Well, the one that aired in my birth universe was number six on the list. It has to do with how original everything is. Number one of the 'Lyokian' universes consists of the absolute original plotline where everything else is completely derived off of it."

"We can't go there." Gwydevis said. "Not until everything that happens happens, and everything that was previously recorded, in every other universe ends."

"So, we choose to go to the others first." Ginda added. "Obviously, since the sixth one aired in my birth universe we can't go there until years after this current time."

"I don't believe a single word of what you are saying." Ulrich said. "It is all lies, nothing but made up lies!"

"Actually it makes sense." Jeremie said. "Multiple variations of the same universe, but with different plotlines. It makes sense... but, then," he directed his attention to Ginda. "Why aren't there an infinite number?"

"That is a good question." Ginda said. "Ok, let's go on the belief that there is one infinitely powerful being, and for the sake of argument we'll call it God. Now if God created everything, but science says that everything, all mater, is made up of energy, just in various states, then think of how many 'big bangs' God would have to pull off to create an infinite number of universes... that is a large amount of energy."

"Uh, you do realized that you just mixed religion with science, right?" I asked.

There was a brief pause of dead, uncomfortable silence as we all pulled our thoughts back together. Then finally someone spoke up.

"Uh, Ginda, I think Odd fell asleep." Gwydevis said. "Perhaps we should get a move on with the story now."

"You're right, people aren't going to find this interesting..." Ginda muttered to herself. "In any case, the point is _normal_ is boring. What people want to read or watch is action, drama, suspense, horror, science fiction, or fantasy. As long as there is one person hanging on to a story you _can't_ live a normal life... so for that I am sorry." Ginda said. "Oh, and Jeremie, in case _you_ are interested you can continue that conversation with the traveler once he manages to come here."

"Speaking of which why isn't he here?" I asked. "I mean I keep hearing you talk about him like he is some, all powerful... god... uh... anyway, so why isn't he here?"

"That is a bit complicated, and so we don't loose our audience I will explain it as thus. This universe doesn't want him in right now so he is currently unable to come here. He is locked out."

"So why are you two able to come here?" Ulrich asked.

"We are... different from him." Gwydevis said. "Thus the universe treats us differently."

"Anyway, how are we going to get out of here?" Jeremie asked, finally getting down to business.

---

"Ok, to escape this universe we have to get Jeremie to bring you out of it. This will be difficult because he has no idea how he got in here in the first place. Because of that I will have to show him how to use his ability just enough to get you back to your normal universe."

"'Just enough'? What is that supposed to mean?" Jeremie asked.

"It means that they aren't going to show you anything else." I said.

"Odd is right, we won't show you anything more than you need to know to escape this world, but that is only because we aren't allowed to."

"You know, I'm curious, who makes up these rules that you seem to have to follow?" I asked. "Is it the traveler?"

"Partly, but not completely." Ginda replied. "Even though we have acquired enough power, enough abilities... enough magic, to be completely sure that no rule will ever apply to us we still are bound by agreement to laws of the universes that we are in. We have to follow their rules while we are within them or... well if we don't keep our part of the bargain then they don't keep theirs."

"And what is their part of the bargain?" Jeremie asked.

"For now you don't need to know that. For that matter you may never need to know that, even when you do start really traveling." Ginda replied. "For now we should just work on getting you six out of here. This universe won't hold for much longer."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Ulrich asked.

"It means that keeping this universe real is taking its toll on me." Jeremie told him. "I can literally feel the energy being drained from my body."

"Oh." Ulrich replied.

"I am sorry but while I am showing him what to do the rest of you are going to have to be somewhere else." Ginda told us. "It is for your own protection, and so that this won't have to be an incredibly long dialogue between Jeremie and myself."

Ginda walked over to Jeremie and for a moment I swear she looked like a girl around our age. It was the way she walked and looked, I guess... When she reached Jeremie she waved her right hand slightly and a shadow appeared in front of her fingers. Before I realized what she was doing she moved her hand in two circles around herself and a black orb appeared around her and Jeremie. Then, they were gone...

At first I didn't believe it. How could they have suddenly disappeared, but then I realized that with all that I had seen within the past few months, not to mention all that I had seen from Lyoko, I guess I really wasn't surprised. Now all I could do was try and find them. It was my normal ability, though I very rarely used it. Every now and then I got visions of the future but that was very rare. This was something that I could control. I could see and hear things at a distance.

I got comfortable and tried to disappear from the room, just to make myself less noticeable. Then I allowed my mind to wonder until I was relaxed; now I was able to search outside of my body for what I was looking for. Jeremie, where was he? Not in the hospital, there was only the group of us in this room. Outside then, but where? Not around the hospital, this is much easier without other people around. Then, find the only two other people in here. A quick scan. Ah, there they are. But, is this... the factory? Why are they there?

As I watched Ginda showed Jeremie how to summon his energy. That didn't take very long. Then she showed him how to control his energy. Again he was a fast learner. Now, what is he doing? Sitting there, eyes closed... what is his mind doing? Ah, so he is searching for something. Now he has found it. But, what's happening now, he's gone... how? Where?

"What the heck?" I heard Sam ask.

I opened my eyes and looked around me. Something was happening. It looked like color was coming back to the world, but color had already been here. I was also noticing something that had been missing for the past couple of hours: noise. It had been like the entire world was mute and now suddenly it found its voice. I heard cars in the streets, and people, as well as people in the hospital. We were back, back in a world with people. Of course there was another problem, we were in a hospital full of people, and we weren't supposed to be.

"Stay calm, and let me handle this." Gwydevis said.

I looked over and noticed him watching the doorway. He turned from side to side looking down both ends of the hallway. Then he turned back and faced us.

"Ok, I am going to do a little spell. It will make the five of you invisible to everyone else, but for it to work you are going to have to hold your breath when ever we are near any people." he told us. "I would do a better spell but this universe won't allow it for now. Are you ready?"

We nodded our heads and took deep breaths. Then he snapped his fingers and I felt a tingling sensation go over my body. I looked down and saw that my hands were becoming transparent. It was a strange sensation, odd to say the least. I looked up and saw that the others were noticing the same thing but they were leaving the room. I quickly moved over to the door to leave with them; I didn't want to be left behind in a hospital.

As we passed by people I kept expecting them to tell us to stop and ask us questions but people acted like we weren't even there. The invisibility really seemed to work, and I quickly found myself becoming very impressed. This was far beyond anything that I had seen, even in Lyoko-but that was all virtual anyway, right? In any case, Gwydevis had said that this was a simple spell. I wished I could see something more advanced...

Suddenly I found myself floating through the vast reaches of space once again... Once again? Had I done this before? Anyway I was floating over a small silvery white planet with green, blue and brown specks and blotches. The sun was shinning directly in front of me and... I felt myself shudder as a massive wave of what looked like fire, but in a more liquid like substance, flew directly by my body. I watched as it flew towards the planet but was ricocheted away by a person. The person was wearing a white cloak with a white cape, though really it wasn't that white at all. There were colors flowing all over it. Hundreds of symbols were reflecting the light of the sun and illuminating on their own. The man's hair flowed behind him as though there were a brisk breeze even though we were floating in a void. I could see the look on his face and it sent shivers down my spine. It was a look of extreme anger and outrage, of immeasurable pain from loss and betrayal, of sorrow and anguish, but most of all of determination.

I knew almost instantly that I was getting my wish. This man, who looked vaguely familiar, and a lot like Gwydevis, was fighting fiercely against someone else. I turned to see who was behind me and was hit by a wave of shock and darkness. The _creature_ behind me was so evil that even though this was just a vision I could feel the waves emanating off of him. Though I didn't have to be able to feel it, the thing was burning with dark black waves. No, that isn't fair. That weren't _black_, not black in the sense that anyone I knew would use the word. The flames ripping the air around the creature were of a number of colors mixed together into one horrid, putrid color that made me ill to see. But the thing that disturbed me the most was the look on its face. It was the same look as the man had, exactly the same.

Now I understood, this was not a battle, this was an all out war. These two had been fighting against each other for an untold number of years. They had fought as hard as they could; always trying to overcome the other and win the final victory... it was literally a battle between good and evil. Their war had stretched across vast universes and over many worlds, but now they were beyond that, now they were at their most powerful and now was the end... _This_ was the final battle. _This_ was the one that would determine who the final victor was. It all came down to this, and I would get to watch it all

It was the man who made the first move, but it wasn't a physical attack. Instead he spoke, "Antavok, this is it. I will not allow you to exist any longer. I will not allow your evil to continue spreading, purging innocence and spawning malice. This ends here and now."

_And how do expect to ever win, Traveler?_ A voice said in my head and by the way it ripped through my thoughts I knew that it could only be the creature. _You know that if either of us is ever destroyed our essence is replenished into a new form. If you kill me the only thing you will be doing is creating a new evil._

"Ba, I have known this since before I created you. It was that very reason that I did so in the first place." The traveler said. "I will find a way to destroy you without your evil being respawned!"

The fighting started. It was so incredibly fast that I could just barely see any of it. They fought, they spat curses at each other, and they didn't let up. It was impossible to describe, at least for me... until...

The traveler had just released a beam of what I had discovered to be energy at Antavok. Antavok was taking the full blast of it and it wasn't doing very well under all that force. The beam itself out shown and out sized the nearby sun, so I knew that this was no simple feat of magic. This was the most difficult and most powerful thing possible, probably. The peculiar thing about it was the traveler had said absolution, which meant: forgiveness for somebody's sins. I didn't know if this was meant to be the reference but that wasn't important. Anyway, Antavok was getting hit by the full force of the absolution and it seemed that he was surely going to be destroyed, he looked desperate enough. Then, when it seemed as though the traveler had finally won Antavok turned the tables and the absolution flipped around focusing on the traveler. There was no way anyone could have expected this, and the traveler had literally put everything he had into that final blast. When the light finally faded there was no sign of the traveler at all...


	11. Revelations

The truth is revieled. Anyway, I am still waiting for someone to come up with an appropreate blurb for the description of this story. If you make one and send it to me then I very well may use it. I will of course give the person who writes it full gratification and thanks, sighting it as theirs. So, please, it isn't like it will cost you anything, and you will be helping me and the story out...

* * *

"This is it Antavok! This will bring about your destruction." The traveler said. "You have ticked off many people and here is their revenge!"

The traveler floated back a few inches and raised both his hands high into the air. A symbol that looked like an 'S' with an 'N' through the center line and a small 'T' on the right end appeared. There were other symbols as well but most of them were too small. I knew the symbol was supposed to represent the five letters 'G', 'A', 'S', 'A', 'N', and yet I didn't know what that meant.

"I call upon all those who owe me, favors, debts, or by any other means. Give me all you have now, when I need it most, any you will have repaid your debt." He tensed slightly and the symbols grew brighter as a ball of energy was formed in the center. "ABSOLUTION!" he yelled and the ball exploded, expanding billions of times its previous size. When it was done the ball was about ten times the near by sun and glowing so bright that the space around us seemed to glow white and yet black at the same time.

"Antavok, this is your end!" the traveler yelled and thrust the ball at the monstrous creature.

The ball shifted and the very space, and probably time as well, around it became distorted. Rips and tears appeared in the fabric of the universe and from them more energy seemed to be spawned, and all of it was directed at Antavok. When it hit there was a massive backlash wave that swept throughout the entire universe and back. I could see the energy beginning to rip and tear at Antavok's flesh. He was being ripped apart by the force of the energy directed at him, and at the same time he was being incinerated alive by the energy itself. I couldn't imagine how he could survive something that could destroy physics itself.

I was soon answered by the most horrifying thing that I had ever, or would ever see. The beam of energy began to stop and reverse direction. All of the energy that had been directed at Antavok suddenly was directed at the traveler. I could see that the traveler was already struggling to maintain the beam itself, he was putting all he had into it. Now that the beam was reversed there was nothing that he could do, and the last thing that I saw was a look of sorrow on his face. Sorrow, not for himself, but for everything else in existence... he had failed us all.

"Odd, wake up!"

I jumped and realized that we were back at the school. I looked around and realized further that we were in Jeremie's room. Everyone was looking at me like I had said something incredibly stupid... I wasn't entirely sure that I hadn't, but I couldn't remember it if I had.

"Odd, have you ever heard the term 'be careful what you wish for'?" Gwydevis asked me.

"Yes, why?" I asked.

"Because you just asked for something very dangerous. In asking for a view of some more powerful magic you somehow looked into my past. I suggest you be a little more careful next time, unless you want to end up dead." He told me.

"Um, what he means to say is you were out of it the entire time walking here." Sam told me. "You nearly got killed about five times."

"Oh..." I said, somehow not surprised.

"No, I meant it exactly as it came out." Gwydevis objected, a sneer on his face. "If you look into my past again, _I_ will kill you."

I jumped back shocked and swallowed hard. Would he really kill me? Besides that, how did he know what I had just seen? Could he, like Yumi, read minds? Of course that seemed more than a little obvious... but then why would he want to kill me just for seeing something of his past? I mean he won in the end didn't he? Or was there something else to it?

"In any case, now that we are all back in our normal universe safely, what are the two of you going to do?" Yumi asked.

"Well, we could simply erase your memories that this ever happened and expect you all to life a normal comfortable life." Ginda said in a calm chatty voice. "But that would be dull and boring. Word has it that the traveler might be able to enter this universe soon... in any case I thought I would join the school as a student. What about you Gwydevis?"

"Huh, me? Well I hadn't really thought about it. I usually don't do much unless Gwydion tells me to do something... so, uh, I wasn't really prepared to do anything else."

"Right, so it's settled then, we erase your memories and I join the school then." Ginda said smiling.

"Wait! I thought you said you weren't going to erase our memories." Ulrich objected.

"Oh, did I? Seems that slipped my mind. Oh, well, rules are rules." She said waiving her hand around in the air as though we were supposed to know what she was talking about. "Well, we are off then. You kids have fun and don't do anything too naughty..." she said laughing as she walked out of the door.

"Women..." Gwydevis said. "See ya." And he disappeared.

The next mourning when I woke up I felt fully refreshed and ready for another day of school. Which, for some reason, when we met in the courtyard and I told them, made the others thought I must be sick. I insisted that I wasn't, and that I was being serious but they all dismissed it as a joke. I laughed their dismissal off and followed them to breakfast.

"Did you hear," Yumi started, "Five kids were seen leaving the hospital yesterday following a shady looking man who was wearing what appeared to be some kind of medieval Japanese costume. It was all over the news. No one knew who the kids were though."

"You are kidding right?" Jeremie asked her, a look of utter disbelief on his face.

"No, and they said that one of them looked like he was drunk..." she added.

Jeremie looked bewildered for a moment and then looked as though he were about to say something, but changed his mind at the last moment and just muttered, "Rules are rules, I guess..."

Breakfast ended without much excitement other than the usual, Sissi walked by and we shared our snide remarks. We had gotten pretty good these past few months at keeping up the act that she wasn't part of our group. Our comments were similar to the ones we had thrown back and fourth when she really wasn't but now they were more creative and less hurtful. When she was with us we joked about how no one else in the school realized what was going on.

Anyway, after lunch we headed for our classes. We waved goodbye to Yumi as she headed off to her class and the rest of us went to Mrs. Hertz's class. There Jeremie and Ulrich took their seats together and I took my seat with Sam. We had changed it when she had moved to our school. I waited expectantly for class to start and when Mrs. Hertz walked to the front of the room I realized that something was different.

"Class, we have a new student joining us today." She said. "Her name is Ginois Giis."

"That's a mouthful," I muttered to Sam.

A very short timid looking girl walked to the front of the room. She had very long hair that nearly reached the floor, and a pair of thin rimmed glasses that were almost like Jeremie's but more box like. She looked over the desktops at the rest of us, and I realized just how short she was, she was just barely as tall as Milly or Tamiya. I began to wonder why she was in this class, but I decided to let it pass, just this once.

Ginois looked almost frightened to death at the sight of us, probably because we were bigger than she was. Yet, there was something that I couldn't quite place. It was almost as though this were simply an act. But then, I was known to think crazier things. In any case when she spoke I felt true pity for her, it was made immediately clear that old mother nature had dealt her a cruel hand. Her voice was both squeaky and quivering, not to mention she stuttered quite a bit.

"I... it is nice t... to meet all of you." she said. "I h-hope that w... we can become goo...d friends."

"Give me a break." I just barely heard Jeremie mutter. "Who does she think she is trying to fool/"

"Mr. Belpois, is there something you would like to share with the class?" Mrs. Hertz asked.

"No, mam." Jeremie said.

"Good," she replied. "Now, I do hope that none of you will _dare_ make fun of anyone because of their size or appearance. Why the nerve..."

For a moment I began to wonder why she was getting so upset but then I realized something. Ginois looked an awful lot like Mrs. Hertz. But, then, it could just be my imagination. In any case she could have just been reprimanding Jeremie for being rude. It was only surprising because it was Jeremie and not me...

"Take your seat, Ginois." Mrs. Hertz said kindly, and Ginois walked to the back of the room...

---

I was floating... there seemed to be nothing around me. This was not Lyoko, nor was this earth. I could feel, yet I couldn't. I could sense things as I had within Lyoko, and yet I couldn't. It was as if I were in a place that was similar to both Lyoko and earth but different as well. Different... I couldn't feel anything around me, I couldn't see anything around me. There was complete and utter darkness, a void, if you will. It was cold, dark, and very lonely...

I remembered, it seemed like only a few moments ago, when I had been brought back to the real world, or so I had thought. When I found myself looking out from where the factory had once been I felt pain. Unbearable pain, complete and utter, horrible beyond anything I had ever experienced, imagined, or probably would again. I had known Jeremie was there, and had called to him. He had come, and he had tried to help me, but before he could reach me I faded back to this... place.

It was like life, time, and everything had no meaning here. I was neither real nor virtual, neither alive nor dead. I could not move at all. All I could do was think, so that was what I did. I though about Jeremie, about earth, about Lyoko. My mind wondered over hundreds of different things, real things, fake things; memories, and desires. It seemed that my mind left no thought untouched. And as time moved on I began to realize that I could think, I could comprehend, far more here than I had ever been able to do before. My person, my awareness, was expanding, and slowly I realized I could move...

The first time it happened I was so surprised that I stopped immediately. I wasn't sure what had happened, but for a moment I had felt part of me outside of what I had known to be my body. After considering what had happened for a moment I tried it again and sure enough I was able to bend my will, my consciousness, outside of what was my body. As I pulled myself out of the shell I suddenly realized that this place wasn't so dark after all; it was, in fact, quite bright.

All around me I saw green, green grass, and a very blue sky with only the most pleasant of clouds in it. There were a few trees nearby and some flowers; but everywhere there was a most delicious smell. It was a smell that I couldn't describe and I never have been able to, but what I knew was that it was all the most pleasant feelings in the sent itself.

I glided across the grass towards a patch of flowers, the pleasant smell growing stronger all the while. As I reached the flowers I saw how beautiful and gloriously beautiful they were. They took my breath away, to simply see them... the colors were so bright, so _real_. I couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than they were.

I sat down on the grass next to them and noticed that I was wearing the most beautiful of white dresses. It was a simple gown, just two layers of cloth, but the effect was angelic. I bent back on the grass and noticed a pond just beyond the flowers. I quickly, and yet luxuriously, got up and made my way to the pond. Looking into the crisp, clean water I saw my reflection and gasped. I still was myself but somehow... there was something different. A pair of wings and a halo of light couldn't have made it more clear, and yet... I didn't care. I was perfectly content here. There was nothing wrong with me, I had simply shed my bonds to the living.

Slightly beyond the edge of the pond, on the other side, I heard a twinkling giggle. I looked up and saw two beautiful little girls, who were probably half my age. They were watching me with their hands held up to their mouths, smiling. I could tell that they were twins, but that was probably the most obvious thing about them. One of them had long white hair that was slightly held up by two braids, the effect was two long pigtails, and the other had much shorter hair that was still in pigtails. They looked happy, and if nothing else, full of energy.

"Hello!" they said together.

"Hello," I replied.

"Join us," the said together.

"Ok," I replied.

I began walking around the pond but as I did so they yelled, "No, walk through the water."

So I did. The water wasn't that deep, or at least I was able to find something solid to walk across. The water was cool, and gentle. It seemed like there was a current running through it. This was something that I had never been able to experience in Lyoko, but I had once while on earth. It brought back fond memories of that day.

"What's your name?" they asked me.

"I am Aelita, what are yours?"

"We are Maru and Moro." They said together. "It is nice to meet you."

Suddenly the sky became much darker and the air became far colder. I looked around and noticed a light source coming from the ground. There, on the ground, not more than ten feet away from me, was the same symbol that I had noticed in Lyoko before I had... died. A sudden chill rushed down my spine. Was this X.A.N.A. coming to reclaim me? Could he even really do that?

"He's here, he's here?" the twins said together.

"Who's here?" I asked.

"It's the traveler." They replied.

Then behind me again I noticed another similar thing happening, but this time there was no symbol. This time the person just appeared out of thin air. I recognized them almost instantly and jumped to my feet.

---

So, once again my friend's memories had been erased, and yet mine remained intact. Again I had realized this, and again I had decided not to say anything. It was probably for the best, not only would they not believe me but even if they did their memories would just be erased again. This was starting to get annoying, but what was I to do about it. I mean, really, it wasn't like I could simply walk up to the young Ginda and demand that she restore my friends' memories, could I? Could I? Perhaps... perhaps I could.

I made up my mind, when classes finished I would hunt down Ginda and make her restore their memories. I didn't know how I was going to do that now, but I was sure that I would figure it out. Besides, I was bigger than her now, and too completely change your form had to take a long time... it simply couldn't be done instantly, she would have done it before she left...

It was the last class of the day, already, and I glared back at the young, childish, Ginda, pretending to be shy. It was disgusting, I _knew_ she wasn't really like that... it was as if she were mocking _me_. How could she keep that act up, and keep a straight face? Worst of all, how could everyone fall for it?

The bell rang and everyone got up. I waited just a few more seconds than the rest; I knew that if Ginda was really going to hold up the innocent girl act she would be the last to leave. That would give me the perfect opportunity to confront her without anyone interrupting. I would have her all to myself, and I would be sure to get all the answers that I wanted...

"Hey, Jeremie, are you coming?" Ulrich called back to me.

"I need to check up on something," I told him. "I'll see you in a bit."

"Alright." And he left the room.

Sure enough Ginda was the last person in the room. She was making a show of putting her stuff away, and even though I was the only one in the room, she seemed determined to keep her act up.

"Ginda." I said.

She continued to fiddle with her stuff, completely ignoring me. If I didn't know better I would have thought that I might be wrong, or she might have misheard me.

"Ginda." I said a little more firmly.

Still she persisted in ignoring me, and keeping up her act. So, to make sure she knew that I was talking to her I walked over to the same desk. I made sure to be quick about it because she was almost done putting her stuff away.

"Ginda." I said again putting my hand down in front of her.

"Ah!" she jumped, acting startled, and began taking back her breath. "Um... my name isn't Ginda, it is Ginois."

"I know it's an act. I know that you are Ginda, the woman that has been harassing my friends and me for the past few months."

She looked up into my face, and quickly looked back at her desk, an almost horrified look on her face. For a second I though I had gotten to her, but then I realized that she was still keeping with her act. I knew now that this was going to be harder than I had thought.

"I don't know what you are talking about," she replied. "Please, I have to go now."

"Go, where?" I said. "What could _you_ possibly have to do?"

"Um, homework." She said. "And my parents will worry about me if I don't get home."

"Parents? Parents, right, so now you have some people acting as your parents." I said. "What, are you paying them, or is Gwydevis acting as well?"

"No, I have parents." She said tears actually coming to her eyes.

Now I wasn't so sure about what I was doing... was it possible that I was wrong? Could I have made a mistake? Well, I would just have to test it then...

"I'm sorry," I said in my most sympathetic voice. "I must have mistaken you for someone else."

She picked up her stuff and ran out of the room. I couldn't tell if she were crying or not but that didn't concern me right now. I had an intention on following her. If she really was Ginda then I was going to get the answers that I deserved. The reason why she kept harassing me and my friends, but most of all me...

I gathered my stuff and left the room. Making sure to keep at a safe distance I followed her out of the school and into the courtyard. From the door I saw my friends waiting for me, and she was heading off in their direction. Now I had to make sure that my friends didn't realize what I was doing, or they would ask me too many questions. I crept behind the bushes near by, and began moving as quietly as I could. When I got near them I could just barely make out what they were saying.

"Wonder what's up with that girl," Yumi said. "So, anyway, like I was saying, there is a new girl in my class; she just arrived today. She seems nice to me, but also a little strange. Her name is Glenna, and she acted as though I should know her."

"That's really weird." I heard Ulrich say. "I wonder where Jeremie is, he said that he would be out in a moment..."

I moved beyond the range of their voices and couldn't hear them any more. A short way in front of me I could see Ginda. She was walking towards the edge of the school grounds. This could be trouble, if I got caught leaving the school grounds I could get detention. The kids who lived on school grounds weren't allowed to leave unless it was for a good reason; that was one of the reasons that we used the sewer to get to the factory. Though, it would be easy enough to get around this. There were a number of locations around the school that had trees near the fence, and I just happened to be near one. I hurried to a place where a tree was hanging over the fence and climbed the tree. Once I was on the other side of the fence I jumped down and quickly made my way back to where Ginda was. I found her quickly enough and resumed following her...

---

"Yumi, hey, Yumi." I heard someone calling from behind me.

"Yumi, someone is trying to get your attention." Ulrich told me.

"I know, she is the girl that I was telling you about. She is kind of-whoa!" I cut off just as a fist flew next to my head. "What is your problem?"

Glenna was a girl about my age, but just a little shorter than I was. She had long golden brown hair and wore glasses. Her close were nondescript, similar to mine, and she carried a very large backpack, the contents of which I could only guess at.

"I hear that you and Ulrich are really good at the marital arts." She said. "And it's obviously true or you would have had no idea that I was doing that."

"What's your point." I asked, obviously annoyed.

"This..." she said throwing another punch, which I avoided easily.

"Hey, what the heck do you think you are doing?" Ulrich yelled.

"I know that you won't normally spar with anyone other than your boyfriend, so I am forcing your hand." Glenna told me.

"Stop." I said blocking another hit. "I said STOP!" and I grabbed her fist and threw her.

"Yumi!" Ulrich yelled.

I was shocked; I hadn't meant to do that. I had only meant to stop the fight. Quickly I turned to see if the girl was alright, but when I turned I saw that she was not only fine but was turning midair and landing on her feet. Apparently she was pretty good.

"Good." She said more to her self than to me. "Now, let's spar!"

She rushed me and I wasn't sure if it was just the adrenaline or if it was actually happening but for a moment I swear that the world around us began to become colorless. Everything was becoming black and white, not to mention that it was slowing down, but I didn't have enough time to process this because Glenna was flying at me full force. I had to block it so I put up my right arm and held out my left. As she threw her punch I blocked it by pushing it away with the left, throwing her into a kick which I blocked with my right arm. Now it was my turn and I jumped at her throwing a blow with my right arm and preparing to block one with my left arm. Sure enough she bounced off the ground and, while her legs were in the air, threw a kick from my left. I grabbed her leg and pushed it back throwing her upright again and threw my punch. But she was also prepared and she caught my arm and pulled me toward her. I expected her to follow up with a punch or, at least, some kind of attack, but she just kept pulling until I was on the other side of her. Stunned I didn't fight back until it was too late and I realized what she was doing. She advanced and. after laying her hand flat just above my stomach, pushed me into the air. I flew a couple of feet until I landed on something soft. I turned to look at what I hit and noticed that it was Ulrich.

"You did that on purpose," I said feeling the blood rushing to my face.

"Of course." She replied. "I know you two are together, so why not _help_ you along..."

"Uh." I said but a brief surge of rage had me flying back into the fight.

I prepared a punch with my left fist and left my right one for balance. Just as I was about to hit her I saw her reaching for my arm to grab it. I was ready for this and just as she grabbed it I took her arm in both of my hands and jumped as hard as I could. The momentum of running and jumping sent me over her and in the process I was able to lift her and... throw. She went flying across the court yard and was in the air just long enough for me to notice that the sun was beginning to go down. Just before she hit the ground she flipped her body and landed on her feet.

"You are good." She said.

"So are you." I agreed. "But not good enough."

We rushed each other and just as I was about to kick she gripped my right arm and pulled me along with her. She spun in a circle and let go sending me spinning back into... Ulrich. This time when he caught me I was facing him, and we fell over... I blushed, he blushed and we got up.

"Stop doing that." I said.

"Why? You two are so cute together."

"Uh..." I stammered, blushing yet again.

"Besides, if my mentioning your relationship can paralyze you... then you two have to be in love..." she said. "It's a shame you haven't kissed yet. I know you nearly did, but then you were stopped just at the last second... such a shame, such a shame."

How did she know about that? It had happened in Lyoko, and we were stopped by going back in time. How could she know... unless...

"Do you know about the factory on the river?" I asked.

"Hm... last I checked that was a construction sight, though I had heard stories about a group of students from this school who had been going there." She said. "But the stories that I heard... well," she coughed and looked away. "I can't imagine that it was you and Ulrich."

I blushed again, my face burning. I had heard those stories as well... but how dare she mention... I couldn't let that pass!

I ran towards her again, but still she was ready for me and just as I jumped her she grabbed both of my arms and literally threw me up into the air. I watched the ground fall away beneath me as I flew an impossible distance in the air, and suddenly I felt vertigo grip me. This was it, the end of my life. There was no way that I could survive a fall from this height...

"You are right... I suggest that you learn to fly." A voice said from beside me.

I turned to look were the voice had come from, and, there _sitting_ beside me was Glenna. She looked perfectly calm as we both flew higher and higher into the air. Suddenly a thought accrued to me. I focused my mind on my body, on the ground below, and on the air around me. Focusing hard on my current position I felt myself stop. I was now levitating myself in the air...

"Who are you?" I asked.

"A friend." She replied. "Someone who was sent here to help you."

"But..."

"Now you might want to tell your mind to keep you floating," she said. "We have started to drop."

For a second I panicked but then I calmed myself down and told my mind to keep me steady. It was surprisingly easy, since the last time I had tried to levitate a person it had taken everything out of me. Yet now I was able to keep myself in the air without any difficulty at all.

"It is due to all the training that you received from Lyoko." Glenna told me calmly. "It has enhanced your natural abilities."

"So you do know about Lyoko." I said. "That explains a lot... So, did you work on it or something?"

"No." she replied. "I am not from this universe. I come from somewhere else, but all will be made clear very soon... it's almost time. But now it is time for you to be back on the ground."

She grabbed my hand and threw me back towards the ground. I tried to stop myself but I couldn't think quickly enough to grab hold of anything. All I could do was watch the ground rush up at me and... I landed softly on the ground, stunned and breathless.

---

After following Ginda for half an hour she finally stopped in front of a house. She walked up to the door and pulled out a key, and after unlocking the door she looked around. For a second I thought that she had seen me but she then turned back to the door and smiled. It was the first time I had seen her smile, in this body at least. She turned the door handle and said, "It's time..." and pushed open the door.

As the door opened I saw a serene light coming from it. The light literally lit up the entire front lawn of the house. Curiosity got the best of me and I moved to a position where I could see what was creating the light. As the inside of the house became visible I saw a hilly field of grass, a large pond, and three girls. As my eyes adjusted to the light I realized that one of them was...

"Aelita!" I said startled.

"Jeremie." Ginda said. "It's time for you to make your first real trip into another universe."

"What?" I asked surprised. "You knew that I was here?"

"Of course." She replied. "But the girl that you were following wasn't me. She was my creation, and you weren't very nice to her."

"Uh, oh... um, sorry." I said, not knowing what else to say.

"That's ok. Now, go to her, Jeremie."

"What?" I asked surprised.

Ginda, now in her real body pointed into the door. Aelita was looking the opposite direction at something that was happening a short distance from her. I walked up to the door and put my hand up to the threshold, careful not to pass it. She was so close, if only I could get to her... and then my fingers passed through the threshold and I felt my body being pulled... suddenly the light was all around me and there, not five feet away, was Aelita. Finally, we were together again...


	12. The Mystery of the Traveler Revised

Howdy y'all. First of all I would like to give thanks to toaZn sIsTeR 92 for giving me the first, and currently only, blurb for the introduction to this story, it can be read where the story is described, on the main page (or where ever...)  
Anyway, a lot of things are revieled in this chapter... that makes it long. In Microsoft Word it is about 7,380 words, but for some reason it is counted at 7,436 by what ever program they are using... must have added a few words... So, enjoy.

* * *

I stepped further onto the field and Aelita began to turn around. When she saw me she jumped to her feet. The effect was stunning, she was wearing gold lined white robes and they shifted in the wind. She was dazzling, but then my eyes began to take in the entire area around us and I realized that, in the right light, everything here was... no less than perfect. But, then I realized that it was dark because of what was happening behind Aelita and I quickly ran to get between her and what ever it was.

"Jeremie!" Aelita said jumping on me and squeezing me in a hug. "I have missed you so much. You wouldn't believe..."

"Jeremie! Jeremie!" yelled two twins together. "He has come for Aelita at last."

I didn't bother to look at the twins, they weren't important right now. What was important was the threat that may come from the symbol on the ground. It was darkening the sky and everything around it, so it could only be something very bad. No matter _what_ it was, though, I would protect Aelita. I would not loose her again.

"What's going on," Aelita asked.

"I would like to know the same thing." I said.

"He has come for Aelita as well." Said one of the twins. "He will take her away, as promised..."

"No! I won't let him!" I said.

"It does not matter, you can not do anything to stop him." Said the first twin again. "You are no match for his power." Finished the second.

"But-! But..." I stammered. "But I can't loose her again."

"Jeremie..." Aelita said, her voice dropping in anguish. "Who, who is coming to take me away, and what was the promise?"

"The traveler, the traveler! He is here." The twins said together.

I looked back at the dark symbol on the ground and suddenly recognized it. I had seen it many different times when I had been around him. Why I hadn't realized this until now, and why, if he was so good the symbol was dark and tarnished, was beyond me. Suddenly the air in the center of the circle began to change. A pillar of darkness constructed itself from the ground up and suddenly I could just barely make out the outline of a man through it. Then the darkness faded and was replaced by light once again and the traveler walked out onto the grass.

"That always takes a lot out of me." he said putting a hand up to his head. "Oh, anyway, I need to do what I came here to do." he said and looked up. When he saw me he jumped and said, "Jeremie, did you get yourself killed again?"

"What?" I asked stunned by his question. "No. I didn't. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, simply because this is euphoria," he said. "Also known as heaven."

"What?" Aelita and I asked at the same time.

"Well, technically it is a heaven that all universes share so then it is technically a reality init of itself." The traveler continued, apparently talking to himself. "It is similar to the dream world in that way, I guess... Oh, right. I nearly forgot. After searching for your spirit for a long time I have finally found you, Aelita, and as promised I have to return you to your world."

"Thanks, but I can do that myself." I said. "All we have to do is walk back out that door..." I turned and pointed into empty space.

"Oh, right... the door into heaven trick." The traveler said, returning his hand to his head. "Did Ginda send you here?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, she keeps trying to find a specific one. Long story and it isn't yours so it won't be explained here, but to put it short in another universe, another reality, there was a boy who lost a friend that way, and Ginda has been trying to find out where it leads to..."

"So... why not just walk through it and find out?"

"Oh, that's too risky... it is guarded by an entire ministry of wizards and witches. Besides, we have a pact that says we can't go messing in their business... at least not after what happened that one time... but like I said that isn't any of your business." he told me. "I came here for Aelita."

"How am I supposed to get back?" I asked angrily.

"Oh, that's simple. Just teleport back." He replied walking towards us. "Hello Maru. Hello Moro, how are you both?"

"Good, good!" They said together. "It is great to see you again, can you stay and play?"

"No, sorry, but I have to get this young girl back to her universe." The traveler said. "I will come back when I have some free time."

The traveler turned back to us and I said, "You do realize that I don't know how to teleport back to my universe."

"No, I thought Ginda taught you how to do that." He said.

"No, she simply taught me how to get out of the universe that I created!" I said, my voice raising.

"Oh," he said innocently. "Well, I guess she took her orders to interfere as little as possible a little too strictly."

"NO, she didn't." I said, struggling to control myself.

"Oh, and how is that?" he asked.

"She has been interfering plenty." I said and proceeded with telling him all the things that Ginda had done.

"True, but has any of that, except for the last part, changed anything in your universe?" he asked me calmly.

"No..." I said. "But that's not the-"

"Then she has been following her orders perfectly." He replied cutting me off. "Now then, let us see about getting you back..."

"Great." I said. "So you can send Aelita back with me."

"No." he said putting his right arm out palm to center and focusing on a point a few inches from his hand.

"Why not?" I asked. "You are sending me back."

"You have a body." He said as a light appeared on his hand outlining the symbol that he used.

"So does she." I said.

"No, her body is over there." The traveler said nodding his head behind him and to the right.

I turned to look and saw that, in fact, Aelita's body was where he had indicated. It was lying on the grass; pale, but not quite dead.

"You can return her back to normal."

"Silly boy, what do you think I am trying to do?"

The light on his had illuminated brighter and the full symbol shone clearly off of his glove. The lights, of various colors, began to move off of his hand as another light, brighter than the ones coming from his glove, began to shine about six inches from his hand. The lights, which looked like little flames, wrapped around the brighter light and the brighter one began to take shape. It became a triangular crystal, or rather two long pyramids attached at the base. Then, once it became a little clearer, it began to distort again, growing vertically both up and down. Every foot or so it would break off into another crystal shaped knot. As it extended both up and down it began to take the shape of a walking stave. The bottom tipped off as one of the over grown crystals, which to be honest looked a little like the things that floated above the heads of the Sims. But the top was doing something different; it was shifting and churning, almost as if something alive was trying to rip itself from the wood, or plastic, or what ever it was made of. Then, suddenly, two separate bones erupted out of the material forming what looked like a pair of skeletal wings. I was horrified for a second but the horror was replaced with disgust when the material began to creep up the bones forming what looked almost like flesh. When the pair of wings was finished, it had feathers now, and shone with a white gold like color, a second pair began to form themselves. This pair was more like bat wings, or demon wings for that matter, and they were of a darker material, which still looked like gold. When both were done, and fully stretched out, the space between the two pairs of wings, above where they all met, another crystal appeared. This one lowered itself into existence and looked like it was made of a large version of the same crystal that the stave had been constructed from, and three smaller ones attached to the three bottom surfaces of the first. When it was finished I noticed that there were various other gems of many different colors embedded in the stave itself. The entire thing gave off a glow of healthy, joyful energy, especially the crystal at the top.

"What the heck is that?" I asked, trying as hard as I could to sound unimpressed.

"This, m' boy, is the stave of power. It took me millions of years to perfect, but I have nearly finished it." He said, looking at it proudly. "It contains every form of magic, sorcery, witch craft, voodoo, and any other mystical power that I have come across. Because of its unique design and materials it can utilize any energy source and perform any mystical feet."

"You sound very proud of it." I said, unconcerned. "But how is it supposed to help?"

He pointed the stave at me and waved it slightly, I suddenly felt very comfortable and content. There was no reason for me to talk, everything was ok with the world... I shook my head shaking off the feeling and returning to myself once again.

"What the hell was that?" I asked.

"You need to relax a little more." The traveler said. "I gave you a taste of what this universe is _supposed_ to do to people." he tapped the stave on the ground and chairs appeared out of thin air. "Sit. We will all be here for a long time anyway."

---

I was walking through the halls of the school, Nicolas and Herb were following me, as usual. Usually to get rid of them I would go to my room and tell them to leave me along, but that was before I joined with Ulrich's group. Now I was a little kinder to them, I would tell them that I wanted to be left alone, and every so often I would kiss them on the cheek before they left. Honestly I was beginning to appreciate their friendship a little more, but I had to make them nicer... after all that time of making fun of the others they were as stuck up as I had been, and since I had been purged of all of that I wished for the same of them.

"OK, boys, I want to be alone now." I said, turning to face them. "You two should go to your rooms, we have a test tomorrow and you don't want to do poorly do you?"

They shook their heads and left. I smiled and closed my door behind me as I entered my room. It was true, we were going to have a test in one of our classes, but I wasn't worried about it, the help that I was getting from both Nicolas and Jeremie assured me that I would do fine on it. That meant that I would have the rest of the night to do what ever I wanted... and that was naturally to hang out with my other group of friends.

I walked over to my desk and looked out my window. They usually waited in a spot which just happened to be directly in the view of my window. And there they were, or at least some of them, Ulrich and Odd were standing on the ground looking up at something. I looked up to see what they were looking at but what ever it was it must have been to far out of my range to see. Then Ulrich began running towards something, and as I watched Yumi suddenly appeared falling from the sky. I cringed, expecting her to hit hard, but she landed as if she had just jumped.

There was a knocking on my door and I went to answer it. Sam was standing there, breathless and panting. She looked like she had just ran all the way here, which was entirely possible.

"Sissi, Yumi and a new girl, Glenna, are fighting." She said. "But I suspect that Glenna is really..."

"Come on," I said moving past her and closing my door. "I just saw Yumi land on the ground."

"She, what? Is she ok?" Sam asked, shocked.

"She's fine, as far as I could see..." I told her, "Come on we need to hurry."

We ran down the halls and stairs until we were out in the courtyard. Once there I looked up into the sky and, sure enough, there was 'Glenna' floating in the sky. I looked around to see if anyone else was seeing this, but everything was covered in a dark haze and no one seemed to notice a thing, not even me. It was like they were all in a trance.

"So, she's back." I said. "And she has decided to show her powers again."

"It appears so." Sam replied. "It must be getting towards that time."

"So, will the traveler finally be able to come here?" I asked no one in particular.

"It would appear so," Sam replied. "Look."

I looked to where she was pointing and saw a shadow lurking in the bushes behind a group of girls. It turned and I saw its glowing red eyes shine in the dim light. So, the time had come, reality as we knew it was beginning to bend and twist, molding itself into something new. It wasn't as if the planets were aligning or some gate had been opened. It was just time, the time when this universe, like so many before it, was opening to the magics that it had held dormant for so long.

Sam and I had been notified about this by Ginda and Gwydevis some time ago. They believed that Sam and I needed to know what was going to happen. This was because, they said, I had a gift at healing abilities, and something that they couldn't define at the time, and Sam had some kind of special sight and manipulation abilities. Sam had used her abilities to become a thief, until Ginda stepped in and got her into a more productive situation. After they explained to us what was going on they began to teach us; each night, after we went to bed, one of them would enter our dreams and take us to a place where we could practice our _true_ abilities. At first I was skeptical, but when I began to be able to use my abilities in the real world I accepted what was going on.

"I wonder if she is going to tell the others." Sam said.

"I should hope so," I replied. "You and I can't do this alone, and we will need all the help we can get."

---

Yumi had landed _safely_ on the ground, and she _appeared_ to be ok, but I wasn't quite sure. She looked more shocked than anything else. That wasn't really surprising, she had just flown a couple of miles into the air after going through a very, um, exciting battle. But there was something else...

"Ulrich, I'm ok." She told me irritably, then she turned her attention back to Glenna. "What do you mean it's almost 'time'?"

Glenna alighted on the ground a few feet away from us. She then turned and walked closer to our group and said, "If Jeremie were here I would only have to explain this once... oh, the traveler is explaining it to him. Good then," she said, almost to herself. "Anyway, I am not really known by the name Glenna, that is an alias that I sometimes use. My true name is Ginois, but most just call me Ginda."

"Ginois," Odd said. "But that's the name of a girl that just joined our class."

"Yes, it is, and she will be joining us shortly." Ginda said. "In any case, you three need to know something. There comes a time in the existence of every universe when the magics that are contained within it are released. Usually, depending on the universe, these magics are stored and kept concealed, hidden from the humans which live within the universe. Though there are many universes where magic is readily accessible and this 'problem' doesn't happen. But in universes like this one the magics are strained and kept locked away until they finally escape and are released into the world known to humanity. When that happens a number of things can occur, usually there is some kind of explosion if the magics are focused on one area, but always, always, magical creatures appear.

"These creatures are sometimes known as demons; since magic is always released, just in smaller quantities, these demons are sometimes found during times when magic is hidden. But when the magic is released after being kept stored and concealed these demons, and the other magical creatures, become more powerful and more dangerous. Anything can happen, and usually does. In my home universe, for instance, when the magics were released all at once there was a massive storm that nearly covered the world. Many human structures were destroyed, many humans disappeared. Some animals began to be able to speak English and other human languages and they began to think like humans...

"But the point is when the magics are released all at once, the main storm, very bad things happen. This happens in every universe at random times. Sometimes the magics are stored again, sometimes they aren't. In my home universe... they had been..." she fell silent for a second.

"So what does this have to do with us?" I asked.

"Silly child," she said. "Do you not understand? It is beginning to happen here, the magics are leaking into the world of humanity and _you_ are the side effect. Have you not noticed your abilities? Have you not seen _Yumi's_. How do you think the school was made, full of children who have various abilities, at various levels? It is happening here, and the full release will be coming soon..."

"So... are we _doomed_ then?" Odd asked.

"Odd! You believe her?" I asked, shocked.

"Ulrich, doesn't it make sense?" Yumi said. "Look at all that has happened, all that we have seen. Lyoko, my abilities, Odd's abilities, _your_ abilities. What else can you attribute that to; we know that it wasn't like this a few years ago..."

"She's right Ulrich, and if you still don't believe me, I'll just have to show you something to make you believe." Ginda said.

She put out her hand and pointed it at a tree that was a short distance behind us. Then, after making a few gestures with her hand we heard a scream, but it didn't sound human, or like any animal that I had ever heard. We turned around and watched as a creature that could only have come out of a science fiction horror movie came flying through the air. It was covered in dark red matted fur with bald spots all around it. It had a long tail that came to three spikes at the end, and there were more horn like spikes around its body. Its mouth was a horrible mess of teeth and flesh. I heard Yumi gasp next to me, and, to be honest, I was feeling week in the knees myself.

"And this is only one of the things that managed to cross through the barrier." Ginda said. "Just be glad that _you_ can see it. In my home world, when this happened, most people couldn't, and those who could... well, there were many, thousands of people who were never found afterward..."

"What the hell is that?" I asked.

"I don't think this one has a name, but it is something that came out of the nightmares of humanity. Magic can take on a number of forms, though magic itself is neither good nor evil, it can become full of darkness, or pure with innocence. But this creature is one that lives in the hatred, malice, and malicious energies that humanity creates."

"Are there more of these things?" I asked, the thought horrified me.

"Yes," Sissi said from behind me. "Many more."

I turned around and saw Sissi and Sam walking up to us. They looked sorrowful, and a little shaken. I couldn't imagine what, or how they knew, but I was sure that I would find out soon enough.

"So, Ginda, is it time?" Sam asked.

"Luckily we still have time." Ginda said. "And remember, it won't necessarily be a bad thing, but bad things will come of it..."

"Alright, what do you want us to do?" I asked, giving into what I knew was coming.

"I am glad you asked." Ginda said.

She held out her right hand, since her left was being used to hold the creature in the air. A light appeared from it, creating a circle, and some kind of symbol, but she was to far away for me to see what it was. Then, from her hand another light was created, and this light moved a few inches away. The new light began to stretch and mold itself and before I realized what was happening there was a sheathed sword floating a few inches from her hand. She tossed the sword to me and I caught it. I pulled it out of the sheath and saw that it was very similar to the sword that I used in Lyoko.

"Similar, yet very different." She said, as though reading my mind. "This sword is enhanced with most forms of magic, and will amplify your own natural abilities, though I must admit it was designed off of the one in Lyoko." She smiled. "When ever you need it just hold your hands as though you were drawing it and it will appear at your side."

I tried it and, sure enough, it disappeared from the place on the ground where I had left it and appeared belted to my waist. I had to admit that I was impressed, though I made sure not to do it out loud.

She turned to Odd and smiled. "I also have something for you." she told him and did the same thing she had done when she produced my sword. This time a pair of gloves appeared and she tossed them to Odd. "Those will produce your laser arrows except that these won't run out like the arrows did. They use your body energy as a fuel and you can control their movement and what kind of arrow they are."

Then she looked at Yumi. "You don't really need a weapon, do you?" she asked, smiling. "But I will give you one anyway." And yet another Lyoko relic was produced. This time it was Yumi's fan. "It will work similarly to the one you had in Lyoko but, just like the other two items, it is enhanced to work well with your abilities here on earth."

"What about Jeremie, Sam and Sissi?" I asked.

"We have something that we can use." Sissi said. "I have my healing abilities, and Sam, well Sam can use anything."

Sam grabbed a twig off of the ground and squeezed it. The twig grew and changed shape slightly until it was something resembling a sward. Then she dropped the twig and it simply turned into a twig again.

"Well, now that you are all set." Ginda said. "I can let this thing go..." and she opened her left hand.

The creature dropped to the ground and looked around for a second. After looking at each of us it turned around and started running towards one of the other students. That made me mad and I began running after it, sword drawn and ready...

---

"So, what happened in your home universe?" I asked the traveler.

"Oh, it was nothing much." He told me. "Just the sky when darker than night, clouds puffed into existence and blew up a storm like none other, floods, earthquakes, tornados, and other natural phenomenon going out of scale all across the earth. Everyone who had previously worked with magic of any kind knew that something was wrong, something big; something on a universal scale, but none of us really knew what it was at the time. It was lucky that I was with my friends at the time; I believe it was what helped me survive the event.

"There was pain, loss, destruction, as all the magical energies that had been forced out of our world by humans suddenly came ripping back into existence all in one long explosion. All over the planet things that had been associated with ghosts, phantoms, witches and the like were happening on a regular bases. Everyone prayed to their gods, as though it would help... mean while my friends and I tried to figure out what was happening."

"And you found out that all the magic had somehow come into existence? How on earth did you realize that?" I asked.

"Um, there is something that I don't understand." Aelita said. "What was holding the magical energies?"

"That's a good question." The traveler said turning his head to Aelita and leaning further back in his chair. "Magical energies usually flow freely, or rather they always do, and any living creature-plant, animal, or otherwise-can tap into those energies. Humans, because of their sentience, are especially able to tap into these energies and bend them to their will, but they rarely realize what they are doing. But of course other animals, whether they realize it or not, can tap into them as well.

"It is this that keeps the energies in check; without anything using them they just 'sit still', and build up. When humans use the energies they are transferred from them to what ever they are using the energies on, and from there the energies either move to their next target or they slowly leek out of what ever object they are in. It is similar, and yet different, with animals, because they keep the energies within themselves for long periods of time, but it, again, slowly leeks out into the rest of nature around them. In that way they keep balance.

"But since humans are the ones who are able to have the most control over the energies they have the biggest impact. In areas that are heavily populated with humans, and few animals the energies congeal around the humans and within their artificial structures. It is then the overall populace that affects the energies, so if all the humans believe one thing to be true, through fear, hatred, or any other emotions, it becomes true. And yet since in most universes where humans have well developed technologies they don't believe in these naturally occurring phenomenon..."

"Yeah, that's because there is absolutely no proof." I said, contempt rising in my voice.

"Oh, but there is, Jeremie, there is." The traveler assured me. "If you look around you in your city, in the places where there are living things you will see and feel a brighter, more lively peace. But in the areas where there is only metal and concrete it is dark, dead, and crushing. What you are seeing and feeling are the energies. The energies that are being used and circulated between the living are 'healthy' but the energies that are not being circulated are 'sick' and dead... Forgive me, please, I am so use to talking with people who work with energy that it is difficult for me to explain these things in a way that is simpler for you to understand."

"Well, there is still no proof that any of that is happening." I said.

"True, but that's because it is such a normal process that any technology that you could use would only detect something that happens everywhere. But technology that can detect energy _and_ track it would be able to tell you something more." The traveler told me. "It is not that there is nothing going on, it is simply that there is _currently_ no way for_ you_ to detect what is. For example, hundreds of years ago, on your earth, people didn't have microscopes to see the tiny molecular events that were going on, but does that mean that they only started happening when humans created microscopes?"

"No, but..."

"And, just because there is no way to truly see the atomic elements that the universe is made up of, I mean _really_ see them, does that mean that they don't exist?"

"No... But-"

"And those scientists that theorize about quantum physics, even though there is _currently_ no way to prove what they are saying, other than in mathematic simulations, does that mean that quantum physics isn't a science?"

"How can you talk about science like that?" I began yelling. "You aren't-"

"I'm not what? A scientist?" the traveler said and laughed. "But Jeremie, I am a scientist. The first time that I was able to go into another universe was with a machine that _I_ invented. Now, I will admit that at the time I didn't really know exactly how it worked, but I do now.

"In any case, I was explaining how the energies had become captured. To put it simply it was because all of humanity, except for those of us who desperately wanted to use magic, willed it to be so. If all of humanity believes something, then you can damn well believe that it will be." he said shaking his head. "Take the mental state of people for instance. If someone says that they can see something that no one else, or at least no one else around them, can see, then they are considered insane. It doesn't matter whether the thing exists or not..."

This couldn't be, how could _he_ be a scientist? It was impossible, simply impossible. Someone who defied all the laws of science could not be a scientist, could not appreciate the complexities of science. If he worked with magic, something that was completely unscientific, then he wasn't a scientist. That was that, and there was no way that it could be any other way.

"But Jeremie... that makes you a non-scientist as well." The traveler said mid-sentence.

"What are you talking about?" I demanded, nearly screeching. "I am so a scientist."

"Not if what you just thought is true. How can someone who is able to physically travel from one universe to others be a scientist if doing so breaks a law of science?" he asked. "At least according to what you just thought."

"But... but... What?" I asked finally.

"When you travel to another universe you are breaking the scientific law that matter is neither created nor destroyed, and the same goes with energy." The traveler said. "Because when you move yourself from your universe to here you are taking your atoms and the energy that they contain from that universe to here, thus destroying and creating them, because, by nature, if it no longer exists within a universe it has been destroyed."

"Uh... you are making my head hurt." I said wearily.

---

Ulrich was running top speed, and, surprisingly, Yumi was right next to him, but they would never make it on time. The monster, demon, whatever, was going after humans, now that it had been taken out of its hiding place. Now we had to kill it before it hurt anyone, and since the other two wouldn't make it on time it was up to me. I aimed my right hand at the monster, taking careful aim, and shot a small arrowhead arrow at it. The arrow flew past the other two and hit the monster in the back spraying blood behind it...

"Oh, sick. Thanks Odd." Ulrich said as some of the dark red blood hit him.

"Gentlemen, and ladies, the monster isn't dead, Odd only managed to tick it off." Ginda said walking forward a little. "This is bad, it's going to call for backup. I can help, but I am trying to keep this all hidden from your classmates, and I won't be of much use."

Once again Ginda held out her hand but this time her entire body began to change. She grew, taller and older, until she was somewhere around the age of eighteen. Then, with a slight shake of her right hand, another change began to take place. First something like metal, only living, began to snake its way around her body, forming a thin layer over her entire body, except for her face. Then another layer, but much larger this time, and more defined, began to appear a few feet away from her. Each piece then connected itself to its place as armor on her, until finally the helmet was attached as well. For a second I thought she was done, I mean, she had a nice suit of armor on, and the rest of us had nothing but the weapons that she had given us, but then a kind of fabric began to stitch itself midair around the armor. When the new cloths had been constructed from thin air I thought, for a second, that I had seen them before in a dream, but I dismissed it. Yet she still wasn't done, she reached her arm back behind her and pulled a small crystal out of nothing then returned her arm to the front. After squeezing the crystal, which was floating a few inches from her hand, it began to grow into a stave. The stave had two pairs of wings, one angelic the other demonic, and a large crystal floating in the air between them.

"Shall we?" she asked through the armor.

"Hey, how come you get armor and we just get these weapons?" I asked.

"Odd, don't wine, I am sure these weapons will help us as much as we need them to."

I looked back at the monster, which had been 'nursing' its wound. It glared at me with its glowing eyes and then bent its heat up into the air and howled. It was a hollow piercing howl and even though Ginda had said that she was keeping the thing and us hidden from the other students they still reacted to the howl. There were screams and people ducked to the ground, but a few of them froze. Those people who froze, I will never forget this for as long as I live, the look on their faces began to change. They began to look greedy, hungry... then, suddenly they began to change, becoming new monsters, and when the transformation was complete the former student was pushed from the twisted, mangled body and plopped in a bloody mess on the ground.

I might not have noticed it had I been watching the sky, like the others, but Sissi ran to the fallen student's sides. I could only assume that she was checking to see if they were still alive, but I didn't continue to watch and find out. There was something happening in the sky that took my attention away. Large dark shapes were descending in groups on us. They were nearly as twisted and mangled as the monster that I had just shot, but these were just slightly less so.

All around us it seemed, there were monsters appearing out of nowhere. Dozens of them, hundreds of them... it seemed that we were surely going to loose this match, until I remembered that we had faced an enemy like this before... X.A.N.A.'s monsters. The only difference was that this was in our world and there was no reappearing in the scanners if our life points went to zero.

"So, what do we do now?" Ulrich asked turning to Ginda.

But Ginda was a little busy, she was holding the stave in her left hand and her right hand was parallel with her face, two fingers pointing into the air. The crystals on the stave were beginning to glow and there were lights glowing all around her. As we watched the lights took shape in three ringlets of light moving around her body. Each ringlet of light had symbols on it and each symbol was moving as though it were alive. Suddenly a larger symbol appeared on the ground beneath all of us. Again I though I recognized the symbol, from a dream, the same one, but I let it pass.

"Sam!" Ginda called. "Come here."

San ran over to Ginda and held out her hand. There was the same twig in it, but this time the twig was glowing. Sam threw the twig in front of Ginda and suddenly everything went black...

---

"So, what will happen to our world?" I asked the traveler.

Jeremie was slouched in his chair grumbling about something, but for now I was ignoring him. I knew he was just being difficult, and I wanted to know all that I could from the traveler. Besides, I knew that Jeremie was listening, he had to be, and all of this information would be useful to him when he returned to earth.

"Well, your earth will start to change, but only slightly. At first creatures will start appearing, similar to the ones that your friends are fighting right now, then as it gets closer to time more and more humans will find that they have some kind of ability, no matter how small. Finally, in the final release there will be an explosion of such magnitude that it would be impossible for anyone to not see, hear and feel it, anywhere on the earth. The explosion will not be entirely fatal, it won't destroy the earth, some human structures will be destroyed but other than that... there is one other thing that will happen on that date though."

"What's that?" Jeremie asked with blatant disinterest.

"I will be able to enter your universe, and I shall bring Aelita with me." the traveler said.

"So, why is it that she can only come back then, and not now?" Jeremie asked, irritated.

"I have already told you. She isn't in her body." The traveler said pointing to where my 'body' was.

"But, um, I have a body. I am in it now." I said.

"No, you are mistaken, Aelita." The traveler said. "What you see right now is your 'soul', your 'self'. If I were to bring you back to your world right now you would fade away and be lost forever, either being reborn or just... dead."

"Oh, well, I don't want that to happen, again..."

The traveler stood up and his chair disappeared. At first I expected mine to disappear as well but it didn't. The traveler took a few steps closer to Jeremie, his long golden hair fluttering in the wind behind him. "Jeremie," he said, kneeling in front of him. "I need to take Aelita with me, her body and spirit are damaged from what happened in Lyoko before it was shut down. She needs to be healed, and even with all the power that I hold within myself I cannot do it here and now. Please try to understand, it is for the best, for both her, and for you."

"Why should I believe you?" Jeremie asked. "Ever since we met bad things have been happening. You have never given me a reason to believe you, or to trust you. Everything that you or your 'clones' have ever done has just made me look like a fool." I looked closer and realized that he was actually crying. "Aelita died because of you, and you did nothing to stop it from happening. When she disappeared it felt as though everything I cared about had been ripped from me, and then the factory was torn down... I had almost believed that if I could restart Lyoko that maybe there would have been a way to save her and..." he broke down into sobs.

"I'm sorry Jeremie, but it was necessary for us to take down the factory. Something had been released into Lyoko and we had to get it out, we are still working on doing so. Besides, if you had found a way to revive Aelita after restarting Lyoko you still wouldn't have been able to really revive her, it would have just been a copy, a shadow of who she really is." The traveler told him, his voice kind and comforting. "Even when you revived Aelita by scanning the hair into Lyoko that time you didn't really, fully, revive her. Part of her is still floating around somewhere, and that's why I need to take her with me. As for our mannerisms, please, forgive us, Ginda, and I have lived so long, and through so much that we can't help but play around a little. We try to keep it minimal, but sometimes it still seems like we are 'playing god' and abusing our powers."

"But, why? Why did it have to be us? There are other universes where there is a Lyoko, and all of us, why did you choose ours?" Jeremie asked, whipping away some of his tears.

"We have been to the others, Jeremie. We have met your other selves. The reason we have come to this universe of Lyoko is because it was meant to be. The universe was about to release its magics, that is an event that literally calls me; in a sense it is how I came to be." the traveler said. "In my birth universe, when that event happened it began to destroy the very fabrics that our world was made of. People were suffering, entire places were disappearing, and animals were dying painfully. Very little good came from the even in my birth universe, and it was because absolutely all the energies had been tainted by humanity as they were kept in their rift. All the energies, even the pure energies had become sick because of humanity, and because of that... well, in the end I had somehow become the 'good' aspect and another had taken on the 'evil' aspect. We fought, I won, and I decided that it was too dangerous for the energies to remain as they were. I drained all of it, I mean _all_ of it into myself, and erased all evidence that it had happened. When I was done everything was like it had been before... except that I had a secrete that no one else could know."

"That's... that's so arrogant." Jeremie said and laughed. "You actually did that?"

"Yes, well, I was young and naive at that time." he said. "I had no idea what the repercussions would be until much later."

"Oh, really, and what were they?" Jeremie asked, a grin snaking its way across his mouth.

"I'll tell you later..." the traveler said. "In any case, will _you_ allow me to take Aelita to Aricitopia?"

"Alright. If it's for her own good, I can't really argue."

"Thank you." the traveler replied and walked over to me. "And, Aelita, are _you_ willing to go to Aricitopia?"

"Ok." I said. "I think I understand why, and I guess it really is for the best..."

"Good, now that that is settled." He waved his stave and I found myself floating in the air. I looked over at Jeremie and saw that he was as well. "Jeremie, your friends need you. Aelita and I will see you in about ten days."

"TEN DAYS, that's how soon that event is going to happen?"

There was a little pop and Jeremie was gone.

"So, Aelita, shall we?" the traveler asked placing me gently on the ground and holding out his hand.

"Sure." I said taking his hand.

"Good bye Aelita." The twins yelled...


	13. The Mystery of the Traveler Revised2

Ugh, sorry I am so late. I have just recently learned to make maps for a game that I like to kill things in (it begins with a 'D' and ends witheither a '3' or an 'l' and is the thirdmaking of one of the original fps games.)and well, got caught up in learning/making/testing... also sorry it is so short-same reason-but, well, you know how it is...

* * *

"What the hell just happened?" I asked waving my sword in front of me madly. 

"Ulrich, open your eyes," Sissi yelled to me. "And stop swinging that thing with your eyes shut or you'll kill someone."

I opened my eyes and looked around. We were still in the school's courtyard but there were no people, only the monsters and us. This would make things much easier, since now we didn't have to worry about the safety of the other students.

"Good thinking, Ginda." I said.

"Well, yeah..." she replied, waving the stave a little. "Well, shall we begin?"

With out even hesitating, why they had been stopped in the first place I will never understand, the monsters rushed us. The closest one to me jumped at me but I still had my sword ready and I pushed the blade at the monster cutting into it and spraying myself with blood. The monster swiped at me and I blocked with the sword; then swiped back and cut its arm off. With a twist of my body and a jerk of the sword I made a clean cut through its head effectively killing it.

For a moment I looked around seeing the others fighting. Because this was not Lyoko there were smells and realistic gore... it was nauseating for a second, but only a second. In that second before I had to rejoin the battle I saw Odd stationed safely on top of a light post nearby, Yumi using a combination of the martial arts that she knew and the fan that Ginda had given her to destroy the monsters that came at her, Sam was picking up random objects and either throwing them at monsters-who usually then exploded-or using the object as a blunt or blade weapon, Sissi was moving between us and checking people for wounds but dissolving any monster that got to close, and Ginda was using the stave to bash the monsters into oblivion. Then, after my eyes swept the battlefield I saw my next opponent. It was a relatively small flying monster with razor sharp wings and a mouth and claws to match. But it wasn't the size or danger that attracted me, it was the fact that it was trying to sneak up behind Yumi.

I ran, faster than I remembered being able to, and jumped onto the back of the flying monster. It had a number of long sharp spikes along its back and they nearly dug into my feet, but I jumped again throwing the monster into the ground feet behind Yumi. I then did a flip in the air and brought the sword down on the creature's head. There was a clang as it blocked with one of its wings and we entered a sort of sword battle. I parried as it thrust and scraped my blade against its wing, I then dodged its second wing and kicked it in what I assumed was its stomach. As it was thrown back I drew my sword back and thrust it into the place that I had kicked. There was a clang and then a sickening splat, crunch, and I was sprayed with a small amount of blood. I thrust my sword up ripping it out of the creatures' body and looked for my next opponent.

---

At first jumping onto the lamp post didn't seem like a very good idea, until I realized that the gloves provided good shielding against most of the attacks that I received. I used one glove to shoot and the other to block, which worked well because I could create a kind of shield all the way around my body which deflected one or two attacks at a time. Doing this allowed me to find and shoot any of the monsters that had joined in the battle, and I provided excellent backup for the others. Though I didn't just provide backup; the gloves somehow enhanced my jumping and climbing abilities and I used this to my advantage.

As a large flying monster swooped down to try and take a bite out of Sissi I jumped off of the lamppost and landed on its back. It tried to throw me off but I dug my 'claws' into its back and began climbing towards its head. I had nearly made it there when another, smaller, flying monster flew down behind me and tried to slash my back. I tore one of the gloves out of the bigger monster's back and aimed but just as I did so Ulrich appeared out of nowhere and cut into the smaller monster's back with his sword. They both fell off and I turned my focus back to the larger monster; now that I didn't have any distractions I aimed both of my gloves at the back of its ugly head and shot off a series of arrows. Each one hit and suddenly the monster began flying more erratically. It arched into a ninety degree angle with the earth and I began falling off. Desperately trying to grab onto something I accidentally shot off two more arrows and fell away from the creature. That was a good thing because I had apparently shot off exploding arrows, and there was a loud explosion and gore began falling from the sky.

Now I had the problem of landing... I didn't particularly want to become like that monster, but there wasn't anything for me to grab onto. I could tell that I was really high up because all I could see were clouds beneath me. I didn't know how far up I was, but I hoped that it wasn't too far up. Honestly, how far could that monster have flown while I was still on its back, and after Ulrich had just jumped on? There were two ways of finding out, one was simply waiting, and the second was to try and 'see' how far down I had yet to go. I decided to go with the second one.

I aimed my upper body downward and put both hands in front of me. Aiming my right arm with help from my left I pointed myself directly downward and tried to focus beyond the clouds. Suddenly I found myself 'zooming' in on the battle taking place beneath me. Yumi was still slicing and dicing away with her fan, Ulrich was doing the same, but with a little less martial arts, and with his sword, Sam was beating off the monsters, and she seemed to have found a long metal pole somewhere, Sissi and Ginda were nowhere to be found. I looked around trying to find these two and saw a group of monsters crowding near an overhang. I could only assume that that was where they were hiding from the monsters that were attacking them, and I knew that I had to do something about it. Aiming my arm into the center of the group of monsters I fired five of the same arrows that had blown up the large flying one. The arrows hit after a surprisingly short time and they all suddenly flew apart spewing a bubble of blood everywhere. That took care of them, so I decided to see what else I could get from up here...

---

I heard a slight whistling noise and looked behind me. There were three monsters huddled in a bunch around the door leading into the school. I had seen Ginda and Sissi run into the school just a moment ago so the monsters must have been following them. Suddenly I realized what the whistling noise was and looked up, sure enough there were a few arrowheads flying down at the monsters and they hit each one. Then, without any warning, all the monsters exploded in a fountain of gore. This was starting to become quite disgusting...

I sensed something wrong, turned to my right, and slashed with my fan just in time. A monster had started charging me and I had just barely stopped it... you don't really want to know how. I looked over at Ulrich and saw that he was doing well, a little bloody but fine just the same. Sam was the same and I had no idea where Odd was. It seemed that our time in Lyoko, and what ever Sam went through, had led to us becoming fairly good fighters. Perhaps we had a chance after all...

"Yumi," Sissi called from somewhere high. "Yumi up here." I looked and saw that she was on the roof. "We need you, hurry."

I ran to the door and tried to open it but it was locked. I saw no reason to break into the school, and remembered that I had 'learned' to 'fly' recently. Jumping as hard as I could I went up three stories and landed on a windowsill. I turned to face the wall nearest me, which was perpendicular with the wall that I was on. I jumped to it and kicked off. Suddenly I realized that I was doing something that they did in movies.

I landed on top of the roof and looked around. Sissi was waiting for me and Ginda was standing next to what looked like a giant robot. Well, it was more like a semi-giant robot. Its body was roundish and probably about four feet in diameter, its legs were almost human but you could clearly see the hydrolics. It had six arms that ended in a gun barrel just slightly smaller than my head. Its color was almost completely white but it had a dark glow to it, as if it were made of a semitransparent plastic that had black mixed in.

"What the?" I asked surprised. "What is that thing?"

"This is a suit that was designed many, many years ago in the traveler's birth universe. He didn't have enough power or resources to ever really manifest a real one but... well, it comes in handy now that we can materialize it." Ginda told me.

"So why did you need me up here?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sissi retorted. "You are the one who is going to use it."

"What?" I asked, astonished. "Why me?"

"You have telepathic abilities, as well as telekinetic abilities. You are the one out of your group that is best suited to do this."

"But... why can't you do it?" I asked.

"Because I will be controlling those." She said pointing around the roof and at the roofs of the other houses.

All around them there were things that looked like really big spiders. They had eight legs and their bodies were shaped like one section of a spider's... except that the top part of it lifted off and showed a number of very strange looking weapons. It looked kind of like the roachsters in Lyoko except with more weapons...

"Those? All of them? But there are hundreds, thousands..."

"Four hundred thirty six thousand five hundred sixty two. To be exact." Ginda corrected. "And I could bring more, and bigger ones if Gwydion would let me..." she said with a little resentment creeping into her voice.

"Alright... how do I pilot the thing?" I asked.

"Simply get in and you will know the rest." Ginda said.

The back of the thing opened up slightly and a very comfortable chair turned around and moved towards the ground. I sat in it and was lifted and turned so that I was facing the inside. I could hear the gears turn as the back locked into place, and then there was a rush of air as the inside was pressurized. The screen lit up and I noticed that it took up the entire wall in front of me. After a few seconds, as the thing 'booted up' I was able to see the outside again, as well as a wide assortment of little displays and windows showing all the various weapons. Suddenly I got a shiver of excitement and realized how some people must feel when they buy a new video game...


	14. The Mystery of the Traveler Revised3

Hello, one and all... as of August 22, 2005 this is my last post for a short time. As you may or may not have noticed I have begun loosing steam, and I just can't allow that. So because of this loss in creativity I am going to stop writing 'Desires' for a time until I regain the insperation that started it in the first place... that will probably be shortly after the next season of Code: Lyoko ends.  
This is not, however, my final post of this story, as had happened with the last one, but just a breaking point. Know now that everything is ok in the Lyokoian world, at least until I come up with another way to hurass the charictors.  
Thank you all for reading this and please feel free to start in on any other stories that I may post.

* * *

I wasn't entirely sure where I was. The traveler had taken me from euphoria to another universe. I believe he had called it Aricitopia, but I had no idea if that meant anything. In any case traveling through universes seemed to be somewhat similar to traveling through Lyoko. Everywhere around me there were lights and symbols of various colors, but I seemed to be in some kind of bubble. The traveler was outside the bubble and his body seemed to be transparent in places, but the places moved and shifted. It was as though he were phasing in and out of the physical realm.

_We are traveling through a space that exists around all other universes. From here I am able to access nearly any other universe in this existence. And this is one of the only ways to access Aricitopia._ He said through my mind. _We will be there in a couple of seconds._

Suddenly we reached the end of the 'tunnel', or what ever it was, and I was standing in a field of very green grass. There were flowing hills around us and as the breeze blew it reminded me of an image of the ocean that I had once come across. The sky was a greenish shade of blue and there seemed to be four suns in the sky. Far away from where we were standing I could see a very large forest that seemed to be growing around a number of large mountains. These mountains seemed to have large platform like planes on them at irregular intervals, but I couldn't see enough from this distance to be sure.

"We are here." The traveler told me. "I want to make you as comfortable as possible while you are here so if you need anything please feel free to tell someone."

"Um, ok, but were will I live?" I asked looking around the empty field.

"Oh, we aren't in a city yet. Don't worry, there are enough rooms for guests." He told me and tapped his stave on the ground.

A light began to circulate from the ground around us forming a circle. The light stretched up and formed a dome above us and suddenly disappeared showing that we were now in a large hallway. Around us there were a number of strange creatures that I had never seen before. There were tall ones that looked almost human but had some kind of variation on them, some looked like trees while others appeared to be on fire. There were also a number of quadrupeds, the majority of which seemed to be various shades of green.

"Those are called Aricitics," the traveler told me pointing to the green dogs. "Be careful around them, they may be respectful but they also expect respect in return. There are three types of the ones that look human, the first being elementals who have ten subspecies. The second are sometimes called humanimals and other times they prefer to be called other things. The final ones that aren't human don't have a group name but they are peoples like elves and dwarves and the like."

"How can I tell them apart?" I asked.

"The elementals come in ten variations: fire, water, earth, air, metal, electricity, ice, wood, light and dark. You should be able to tell which is which, and you should note they prefer not to wear clothing. If that makes you uncomfortable feel free to tell them, they don't mind changing temporarily for others. The humanimals look like humans with other-animal qualities, such as a woman with a cat tail and ears. They usually don't need to wear clothing, since their fur covers up anything that would be shown, but some of them do and some of them prefer to anyway. Finally the others almost always wear clothing, the elves are very tall and have ears similar to the ones you have now; the dwarves are very short and have long beards... well, the others will tell you what they call themselves if you ask." He told me. "There are also a few humans here, you may or may not see them. Each city is connected through space and time so you can travel from here to any other city in this universe through specific doors that will be marked. I will show you to your room right now, if you ever get lost don't worry just think about your room and open a door... you will be taken directly there. I will also be having someone, or myself teach you a few things that I am sure you will find useful when I take you back to your home..." he paused and cocked his head. "Now, if you will excuse me I must attend something." And he disappeared.

"Gwinesis! Damn it, he needs to stop doing that." A man said from somewhere to my right. I turned to look at who was speaking and saw someone who looked almost exactly like the traveler. The few differences were that his hair was brown rather than blond with very light green overtones, and what he was wearing was a rich emerald green. There was also something about his face but that was harder to describe. "I'm sorry about him." The man said approaching me. "Aelita was it? Here, let me show you to your room." He walked up to a wall and as a door appeared he turned the handle. When he opened the door I saw a room that looked like a mixture of the four Lyoko areas and of Yumi's house. It was very large and I began to wonder how it could all fit, and if they had been preparing for me. "My name is Gwyosis, I am... well, it isn't important right now." he paused for a moment. "Gwydion is kind of unreliable some times... no, all the time, so if you need help and he isn't around call me and I will probably be able to help you."

"Um, thank you." I said.

"I'll leave you be for now. Again, if there is anything you need, ask." And he walked away.

I entered my new home and looked around. As I said before it was a combination between Lyoko and Yumi's house and I was able to see the room I had slept in at Yumi's house. The combination was very strange but very beautiful as well. The way the areas merged together was done in such a way that it looked like it was supposed to be that way. Part of Yumi's room merged into a small section of the forest, the bathroom of her house merged after that directly over a small pool of water and what I assumed was supposed to be a waterfall. The living room merged with the mountain region so that if I sat on the couch and watched the television I could also see mountains over a vast valley. It was very beautiful and I continued to wonder how it had been done.

After a while of exploring the room I found a tower and entered it. The inside was the same as it had been in Lyoko and I tried to access it. When I began opening windows I found that it really was a replica of Lyoko in every way. I could access everything that I had been able to before, and I guessed the only difference was that I wouldn't have to worry about X.A.N.A. That was a good thing, but I doubted that he would be able to even do anything in this world.

I looked around within the files and found that I was able to access media from this world. After turning on a television like window I began looking through the 'channels'. Suddenly I found something that looked very familiar and began watching it. It took only a second to realize that it was a television show about us... about Lyoko and the others. For a moment I was shocked, but then my curiosity overcame me and I continued to watch this new thing with interest...


End file.
